THE    CUP    OF    FURY 
V 


BOOKS  BY 
RUPERT   HUGHES 

THE  CUP  OF  FURY 

THE   UNPARDONABLE   SIN 

WE  CAN'T   HAVE   EVERYTHING 

IN    A    LITTLE    TOWN 

THE   THIRTEENTH  COMMANDMENT 

CLIPPED   WINGS 

WHAT   WILL   PEOPLE   SAY? 

THE   LAST   ROSE   OF  SUMMER 

EMPTY   POCKETS 

LONG    EVER    AGO 


HARPER  &   BROTHERS,    NEW   YORK 
ESTABLISHED    1817 


"  Tt  would  be  nice  to  be  married,"  Marie  Louise   re- 


I 


fleeted,  "if  one  could  stay  single  at  the  same  time." 


The 

CUP  OF   FURY 

A  Novel  of  Cities  and  Shipyards 

BY 
RUPERT   HUGHES 


Author  of 

"WE  CAN'T  HAVE  EVERYTHING" 
"THE  UNPARDONABLE  SIN"  ETC. 


ILLU  STRATE  D     BY 

HENRY    RALEIGH 


HARPER    &    BROTHERS    PUBLISHERS 

NEW    YORK    AND     LONDON 


THE  Cup  OF  FURY 

Copyright,   1919,  by  Harper  &   Brothers 

Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 

Published  May.  1919 

D-T 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

"//  would  be  nice  to  be  married"  Marie  Louise  reflected,  "if 

one  could  stay  single  at  the  same  time." Frontispiece 

He  tried  to  swing  her  to  the  pommel,  but  she  fought  herself  free 

and  came  to  the  ground  and  was  almost  trampled.     .     .  Facing  p.      3 

"  This  is  the  life  for  me.     I've  been  a  heroine  and  a  war-worker 

about  as  long  as  I  can."       "          77 

"'It's  beautiful  overhead  if  you're  going  that  way,'"  Davidge 
quoted.  He  set  out  briskly,  but  Marie  Louise  hung  back. 
"Aren't  you  afraid  to  push  on  when  you  can't  see  where 
you're  going?"  she  demanded 93 

There  was  something  hallowed  and  awesome  about  it  all.     It 

had  a  cathedral  majesty 169 

How  quaint  a  custom  it  is  for  people  who  know  each  other  well 
and  see  each  other  in  plain  clothes  every  day  to  get  them 
selves  up  with  meticulous  skill  in  the  evening  like  Christmas 
parcels  for  each  other's  examination 239 

"So  I  have  already  done  something  more  for  Germany.  That's 
splendid.  Now  tell  me  what  else  I  can  do."  Nicky  was 
too  intoxicated  with  his  success  to  see  through  her  thin 
disguise 275 

Nobody  recognized  the  lily-like  beauty  of  Miss  Webling  in  the 

smutty-faced  passer-boy  crouching  at  Sntton's  elbow.    .     .       ' '        287 


2229195 


BOOK    I 

IN    LONDON 


' 


re  tried  to  swing  her  to  the   pommel,  but  she  fought 
herself  free  and  came  to  the  ground  and  was  almost 
trampled. 


H' 


THE    CUP    OF    FURY 


CHAPTER  I 

'"T'HEN  the  big  door  swung  back  as  if  of  itself.  Marie 
1  Louise  had  felt  that  she  would  scream  if  she  were  kept 
a  moment  outside.  The  luxury  of  simply  wishing  the  gate 
ajar  gave  her  a  fairy-book  delight  enhanced  by  the  pleasant 
deference  of  the  footman,  whose  face  seemed  to  be  hung  on 
the  door  like  a  Japanese  mask. 

Marie  Louise  rejoiced  in  the  dull  splendor  of  the  hall. 
The  obsolete  gorgeousness  of  the  London  home  had  never 
been  in  good  taste,  but  had  grown  as  lovable  with  years  as 
do  the  gaudy  frumperies  of  a  rich  old  relative.  All  the  good, 
comfortable  shelter  of  wealth  won  her  blessing  now  as  never 
before.  The  stairway  had  something  of  the  grand  manner, 
too,  but  it  condescended  graciously  to  escort  her  up  to  her 
own  room;  and  there,  she  knew,  was  a  solitude  where  she 
could  cry  as  hard  as  she  wanted  to,  and  therefore  usually  did 
not  want  to.  Besides,  her  mood  now  was  past  crying  for. 

She  was  afraid  of  the  world,  afraid  of  the  light.  She  felt 
the  cave-impulse  to  steal  into  a  deep  nook  and  cower  there 
till  her  heart  should  be  replenished  with  courage  automati 
cally,  as  ponds  are  fed  from  above. 

Marie  Louise  wanted  walls  about  her,  and  stillness,  and 
people  shut  out.  She  was  in  one  of  the  moods  when  the 
soul  longs  to  gather  its  faculties  together  in  a  family,  making 
one  self  of  all  its  selves.  Marie  Louise  had  known  privation 
and  homelessness  and  the  perils  they  bring  a  young  woman, 
and  now  she  had  riches  and  a  father  and  mother  who  were 
great  people  in  a  great  land,  and  who  had  adopted  her  into 
their  own  hearts,  their  lives,  their  name.  But  to-day  she 
asked  nothing  more  than  a  deep  cranny  in  a  dark  cave. 


4  THE    CUP    OF    FURY 

She  would  have  said  that  no  human  voice  or  presence 
could  be  anything  but  a  torture  to  her.  And  yet,  when 
she  hurried  up  the  steps,  she  was  suddenly  miraculously 
restored  to  cheerfulness  by  the  tiny  explosion  of  a  child's 
laughter  instantly  quenched.  She  knew  that  she  was  about 
to  be  ambushed  as  usual.  She  must  pretend  to  be  com 
pletely  surprised  once  more,  and  altogether  terrified  with  her 
perfect  regularity. 

Her  soul  had  been  so  utterly  surprised  and  terrified  in  the 
outer  world  that  this  infantile  parody  was  curiously  welcome, 
^ince  nothing  keeps  the  mind  in  balance  on  the  tight-rope  of 
sanity  like  the  counterweight  that  comedy  furnishes  to 
tragedy,  farce  to  frenzy,  and  puerility  to  solemnity. 

The  children  called  her  "Auntie,"  but  they  were  not  hers 
except  through  the  adoption  of  a  love  that  had  to  claim  some 
kinship.  They  looked  like  her  children,  though — so  much  so, 
indeed,  that  strangers  thought  that  she  was  their  young 
mother.  But  it  was  because  she  looked  like  their  mother, 
who  had  died,  that  the  American  girl  was  a  member  of  this 
British  household,  inheriting  some  of  its  wealth  and  much 
of  its  perilous  destiny. 

She  had  been  ambuscaded  in  the  street  to-day  by  demons 
not  of  faery,  but  of  fact,  that  had  leaped  out  at  her  from 
nowhere.  It  solaced  her  somehow  to  burlesque  the  terror 
that  had  whelmed  her,  and,  now  that  she  was  assailed  by 
ruthless  thugs  of  five  and  seven  years,  the  shrieks  she  had 
not  dared  to  release  in  the  street  she  gave  forth  with  vigor, 
as  two  nightgowned  tots  flung  themselves  at  her  with  milk- 
curdling  cries  of: 

"Boo-ooh!" 

Holding  up  pink  fat  hands  for  pistols,  they  snapped  their 
thumbs  at  her  and  said: 

"Bang!    Bang!" 

And  she  emitted  most  amusing  squeals  of  anguish  and 
staggered  back,  stammering: 

"Oh,  p-p-please,  Mr.  Robbobber  and  Miss  Burgurgular, 
take  my  1-1-life  but  spare  my  m-m-money." 

She  had  been  so  genuinely  scared  before  that  she  marred 
the  sacred  text  now,  and  the  First  Murderer,  who  had  all 
the  conservative  instincts  of  childhood,  had  to  correct  her 
misquotation  of  the  sacred  formula: 


THE    CUP   OF    FURY  5 

"  No,  no,  Auntie,  Say, '  Take  my  money  but  spare  my  life !' 
Now  we  dot  to  do  it  all  over." 

"I  beg  your  pardon  humbly,"  she  said,  and  went  back  to 
be  ambushed  again.  This  time  the  boy  had  an  inspiration. 
To  murder  and  robbery  he  would  add  scalping. 

But  Marie  Louise  was  tired.  She  had  had  enough  of 
fright,  real  or  feigned,  and  refused  to  be  scalped.  Besides, 
she  had  been  to  the  hairdresser's,  and  she  explained  that 
she  really  could  not  afford  to  be  scalped.  The  boy  was  bit 
terly  disappointed,  and  he  grew  furious  when  the  untimely 
maid  came  for  him  and  for  his  ruthless  sister  and  demanded 
that  they  come  to  bed  at  once  or  be  reported. 

As  the  warriors  were  dragged  off  to  shameful  captivity, 
Marie  Louise,  watching  them,  was  suddenly  shocked  by 
the  thought  of  how  early  in  life  humanity  begins  to  revel 
in  slaughter.  The  most  innocent  babes  must  be  taught  not 
to  torture  animals.  Cruelty  comes  with  them  like  a  caul, 
or  a  habit  brought  in  from  a  previous  existence.  They  always 
almost  murder  their  mothers  and  sometimes  quite  slay  them 
when  they  are  born.  Their  first  pastimes  are  killing  games, 
playing  dead,  stories  of  witches,  cannibalistic  ogres.  The 
American  Indian  is  the  international  nursery  pet  because  of 
his  traditional  fiendishness. 

It   seemed  inconsistent,   but   it  was   historically  natural 
that  the  boy  interrupted  in  his  massacre  of  his  beloved  aunt 
should  hang  back  to  squall  that  he  would  say  his  prayers 
only  to  her.     Marie  Louise  glanced  at  her  watch.     She  had 
barely  time  to  dress  for  dinner,  but  the  children  had  to  be 
obeyed.     She  made  one  weak  protest. 
'Fraulein  hears  your  prayers." 
'But  she's  wented  out." 
'Well,  I'll  hear  them,  then." 
'Dot  to  tell  us  fairy-'tory,  too,"  said  the  girl. 
'All  right,  one  fairy-'tory— 

She  went  to  the  nursery,  and  the  cherubs  swarmed  up  to 
her  lap  demanding  "somefin  bluggy." 

Invention  failed  her  completely.  She  hunted  through  her 
memory  among  the  Grimms'  fairy-tales.  She  could  recall 
nothing  that  seemed  sweet  and  guileless  enough  for  these 
two  lambs. 

All  that  she  could  think  of  seemed  to  be  made  up  of  ghoulish 


6  THE   CUP   OF    FURY 

plots;  of  children  being  mistreated  by  harsh  stepmothers; 
of  their  being  turned  over  to  peasants  to  slay;  of  their  being 
changed  into  animals  or  birds;  of  their  being  seized  by  wolves, 
or  by  giants  that  drank  blood  and  crunched  children's  bones 
as  if  they  were  reed  birds;  of  hags  that  cut  them  up  into  bits 
or  thrust  them  into  ovens  and  cooked  them  for  gingerbread. 
It  occurred  to  her  that  all  the  German  fairy-stories  were 
murderously  cruel.  She  felt  a  revulsion  against  each  of  the 
legends.  But  her  mind  could  not  find  substitutes. 

After  a  period  of  that  fearful  ordeal  when  children  tyran 
nize  for  romances  that  will  not  come,  her  mind  grew  mu 
tinous  and  balked.  She  confessed  her  poverty  of  ideas. 

The  girl,  Bettina,  sulked;  the  boy  screamed: 

"Aw,  botheration!  We  might  as  well  say  our  prayers  and 
go  to  bed." 

In  the  least  pious  of  moods  they  dropped  from  her  knees 
to  their  own  and  put  their  clasped  hands  across  her  lap. 
They  became  in  a  way  hallowed  by  their  attitude,  and  the 
world  seemed  good  to  her  again  as  she  looked  down  at  the 
two  children,  beautiful  as  only  children  can  be,  innocent 
of  wile,  of  hardship  and  of  crime,  safe  at  home  and  pray 
ing  to  their  heavenly  Father  from  whose  presence  they  had 
so  recently  come. 

But  as  she  brooded  over  them  motherly  and  took  strength 
from  them  as  mothers  do,  she  thought  of  other  children  in 
other  countries  orphaned  in  swarms,  starving  in  multi 
tudes,  waiting  for  food  like  flocks  of  lambs  in  the  blizzard 
of  the  war.  She  thought  still  more  vividly  of  children  flung 
into  the  ocean.  She  had  seen  these  children  at  her  knees 
fighting  against  bitter  medicines,  choking  on  them  and 
blurting  them  out  at  mouth  and  nose  and  almost,  it  seemed, 
at  eyes.  So  it  was  very  vivid  to  her  how  children  thrown 
into  the  sea  must  have  gagged  with  terror  at  the  bitter  medicine 
of  death,  strangled  and  smothered  as  they  drowned. 

She  heard  the  prayers  mumbled  through,  but  at  the  hasty 
"Amen"  she  protested. 

"You  didn't  thank  God  for  anything.  Haven't  you  any 
thing  to  thank  God  for?" 

If  they  had  expressed  any  doubt,  she  would  have  told  them 
of  dozens  of  special  mercies,  but  almost  instantly  they  an 
swered,  "Oh  yes!"  They  looked  at  each  other,  understood, 


THE   CUP   OF    FURY  7 

nodded,  clapped  their  hands,  and  chuckled  with  pride.  Then 
they  bent  their  heads,  gabled  their  finger-tips,  and  the  boy  said: 

"We  t'ank  Dee,  O  Dod,  for  making  sink  dat  old  Lusitania.'1 
And  the  girl  said,  "  A-men!" 

Marie  Louise  gave  a  start  as  if  she  had  been  stabbed. 
It  was  the  loss  of  the  Lusitania  that  had  first  terrified  her. 
She  had  just  seen  it  announced  on  the  placards  of  news 
boys  in  London  streets,  and  had  fled  home  to  escape  from 
the  vision,  only  to  hear  the  children  thank  Heaven  for  it! 
She  rose  so  suddenly  that  she  flung  the  children  back  from 
their  knees  to  their  haunches.  They  stared  up  at  her  in 
wondering  fear.  She  stepped  outside  the  baleful  circle  and 
went  striding  up  and  down  the  room,  fighting  herself  back  to 
self-control,  telling  herself  that  the  children  were  not  to 
blame,  yet  finding  them  the  more  repulsive  for  their  very 
innocence.  The  purer  the  lips,  the  viler  the  blasphemy. 

She  was  not  able  to  restrain  herself  from  denouncing  them 
with  all  her  ferocity.  She  towered  over  them  and  cried 
out  upon  them:  "You  wicked,  wicked  little  beasts,  how  dare 
you  put  such  loathsome  words  into  a  prayer !  God  must  have 
gasped  with  horror  in  heaven  at  the  shame  of  it.  Wherever 
did  you  get  so  hateful  an  idea?" 

"Wicked  your  own  self!"  the  boy  snapped  back.  "Frau- 
lein  read  it  in  the  paper  about  the  old  boat,  and  she  walked 
up  and  down  the  room  like  what  you  do,  and  she  said,  "Ach, 
unser  Dott — how  dood  you  are  to  us,  to  make  sink  dat 
Lusitania!" 

He  was  going  on  to  describe  her  ecstasy,  but  Marie  Louise 
broke  in:  "It's  Fraulein's  work,  is  it?  I  might  have  known 
that!  Oh,  the  fiend,  the  harpy!" 

The  boy  did  not  know  what  a  harpy  was,  but  he  knew 
that  his  beloved  Fraulein  was  being  called  something,  and 
he  struck  at  Marie  Louise  fiercely,  kicked  at  her  shins  and 
tried  to  bite  her  hands,  screaming:  "You  shall  not  call  our 
own  precious  Fraulein  names.  Harpy,  your  own  self!" 

And  the  little  girl  struck  and  scratched  and  made  a  curdled 
face  and  echoed,  "Harpy,  your  own  self!" 

It  hurt  Marie  Louise  so  extravagantly  to  be  hated  by 
these  irascible  cherubs  that  her  anger  vanished  in  regret. 
She  pleaded:  "But,  my  darlings,  you  don't  know  what  you 
are  saying.  The  Lusitania  was  a  beautiful  ship — " 


8  THE   CUP   OF    FURY 

The  boy,  Victor,  was  loyal  always  to  his  own:  "She  wasn't 
as  beautiful  as  my  yacht  what  I  sail  in  the  Round  Pond." 

Marie  Louise  condescended  to  argue:  "Oh  yes,  she  was! 
She  was  a  great  ship,  noble  like  Saint  Paul's  Cathedral,  and 
she  was  loaded  with  passengers,  men  and  women  and  children : 
and  then  suddenly  she  was  ripped  open  and  sunk,  and  little 
children  like  you  were  thrown  into  the  water,  into  the  deep, 
deep,  deep  ocean.  And  the  big  waves  tore  them  from  their 
mothers'  arms  and  ran  off  with  them,  choking  and  strangling 
them  and  dragging  them  down  and  down — forever  down." 

She  was  dizzied  by  the  horde  of  visions  mobbing  her  brain. 
Then  the  onrush  of  horror  was  checked  abruptly  as  she  saw 
the  supercilious  lad  regarding  her  frenzy  calmly.  His  com 
ment  was: 

"It  served  'em  jolly  well  right  for  bein'  on  'at  old  boat." 

Marie  Louise  almost  swooned  with  dread  of  such  a  soul. 
She  shrank  from  the  boy  and  groaned,  "Oh,  you  toad,  you 
little  toad!" 

He  was  frightened  a  little  by  her  disgust,  and  he  took 
refuge  in  a  higher  authority.  "Fraulein  told  us.  And  she 
knows." 

The  bit  lassiky  stormed  to  his  support:  "She  does  so!"  and 
drove  it  home  with  the  last  nail  of  feminine  argument:  "So 
there  now!" 

Marie  Louise  retorted,  weakly:  "We'll  see!  We'll  soon 
see!"  And  she  rushed  out  of  the  room,  like  another  little 
girl,  straight  to  the  door  of  Sir  Joseph,  where  she  knocked  im 
patiently.  His  man  appeared  and  murmured  through  a 
crevice:  "Sorry,  miss,  but  Seh  Joseph  is  dressing." 

Marie  Louise  went  to  Lady  Webling's  door,  and  a  maid 
came  to  whisper:  " She  is  in  her  teb.  We're  having  dinner 
at  tome  to-night,  miss." 

Marie  Louise  nodded.  Dinner  must  be  served,  and  on 
time.  It  was  the  one  remaining  solemnity  that  must  not 
be  forgotten  or  delayed. 

She  went  to  her  own  room.  Her  maid  was  in  a  stew 
about  the  hour,  and  the  gown  that  was  to  be  put  on.  Marie 
Louise  felt  that  black  was  the  only  wear  on  such  a  Barthol 
omew's  night.  But  Sir  Joseph  hated  black  so  well  that  he 
had  put  a  clause  in  his  will  against  its  appearance  even  at 
his  own  funeral.  Marie  Louise  loved  him  dearly,  but  she 


THE    CUP   OF    FURY  9 

feared  his  prejudices.  She  had  an  abject  terror  of  offending 
him,  because  she  felt  that  she  owed  everything  she  had,  and 
was,  to  the  whim  of  his  good  grace.  Gratitude  was  a  passion 
with  her,  and  it  doomed  her,  as  all  passions  do,  good  or  bad, 
to  the  penalties  human  beings  pay  for  every  excess  of  virtue 
or  vice — if,  indeed,  vice  is  anything  but  an  immoderate, 
untimely  virtue. 


CHAPTER  II 

MARIE  LOUISE  let  her  maid  select  the  gown.  She 
was  an  exquisite  picture  as  she  stood  before  the  long 
mirror  and  watched  the  buckling  on  of  her  armor,  her  armor 
of  taffeta  and  velvet  with  the  colors  of  sunlit  leaves  and  noon- 
warmed  flowers  in  carefully  elected  wrinkles  assured  with 
many  a  hook  and  eye.  Her  image  was  radiant  and  pliant 
and  altogether  love-worthy,  but  her  thoughts  were  sad  and 
stern. 

She  was  resolved  that  Fraulein  should  not  remain  in  the 
house  another  night.  She  wondered  that  Sir  Joseph  had 
not  ousted  her  from  the  family  at  the  first  crash  of  war. 
The  old  crone !  She  could  have  posed  for  one  of  the  Grimms' 
most  vulturine  witches.  But  she  had  kept  a  civil  tongue  in 
her  head  till  now;  the  children  adored  her,  and  Sir  Joseph 
had  influence  enough  to  save  her  from  being  interned  or 
deported. 

Hitherto,  Marie  Louise  had  felt  sorry  for  her  in  her  dilemma 
of  being  forced  to  live  at  peace  in  the  country  her  own  country 
was  locked  in  war  with.  Now  she  saw  that  the  woman's 
oily  diplomacy  was  only  for  public  use,  and  that  all  the  while 
she  was  imbruing  the  minds  of  the  little  children  with  the  dye 
of  her  own  thoughts.  The  innocents  naturally  accepted 
everything  she  told  them  as  the  essence  of  truth. 

Marie  Louise  hoped  to  settle  the  affair  before  dinner,  but 
by  the  time  she  was  gowned  and  primped,  the  first  pre 
mature  guest  had  arrived  like  the  rathest  primrose,  shy, 
surprised,  and  surprising.  Sir  Joseph  had  gone  below  already. 
Lady  Webling  was  hull  down  on  the  stairway. 

Marie  Louise  saw  that  her  protest  must  wait  till  after  the 
dinner,  and  she  followed  to  do  her  duty  to  the  laws  of 
hospitality. 

Sir  Joseph  liked  to  give  these  great  affairs.  He  loved  to 
eat  and  to  see  others  eat.  "The  more  the  merrier,"  was  his 


THE    CUP   OF    FURY  n 

motto — one  of  the  most  truthless  of  the  old  saws.  Little 
dinners  at  Sir  Joseph's — what  he  called  "on  fameals" — 
would  have  been  big  dinners  elsewhere.  A  big  dinner  was 
like  a  Lord  Mayor's  banquet.  He  needed  only  a  crier  at  his 
back  and  a  Petronius  to  immortalize  his  gourmandise. 

To-night  he  had  great  folk  and  small  fry.  Nobody  pre 
tended  to  know  the  names  of  everybody.  Sir  Joseph  himself 
leaned  heavily  on  the  man  who  sang  out  the  labels  of  the 
guests,  and  even  then  his  wife  whispered  them  to  him  as  they 
came  forward,  and  for  a  precaution,  kept  slipping  them  into 
the  conversation  as  reminders. 

There  were  several  Americans  present:  a  Doctor  and  Mrs. 
Clinton  Worthing  who  had  come  over  with  a  special  shipload 
of  nurses.  The  ship  had  been  fitted  out  by  Mrs.  Worthing, 
who  had  been  Muriel  Schuyler,  daughter  of  the  giant  plutocrat, 
Jacob  Schuyler,  who  was  lending  England  millions  of  money 
weekly.  A  little  American  millionaire,  Willie  Enslee,  living 
in  England  now  on  account  of  some  scandal  in  his  past,  was 
there.  He  did  not  look  romantic. 

Marie  Louise  had  no  genius  for  names,  or  faces,  either. 
To-night  she  was  frightened,  and  she  made  some  horrible 
blunders,  greeting  the  grisly  Mr.  Verrinder  by  the  name 
of  Mr.  Hilary.  The  association  was  clear,  for  Mr.  Hilary 
had  called  Mr.  Verrinder  atrocious  names  in  Parliament; 
but  it  was  like  calling  "Mr.Capulet"  "Mr.  Montague."  Marie 
Louise  tried  to  redeem  her  blunder  by  putting  on  an  extra 
effusiveness  for  the  sake  of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Norcross.  Mrs. 
Norcross  had  only  recently  shaken  off  the  name  of  Mrs. 
Patchett  after  a  resounding  divorce.  So  Marie  Louise  called 
her  new  husband  by  the  name  of  her  old,  which  made  it  very 
pleasant. 

Her  wits  were  so  badly  dispersed  that  she  gave  up  the 
attempt  to  take  in  the  name  of  an  American  whom  Lady 
Webling  passed  along  to  her  as  "Mr.  Davidge,  of  the  States." 
And  he  must  have  been  somebody  of  importance,  for  even 
Sir  Joseph  got  his  name  right.  Marie  Louise,  however,  dis 
liked  him  cordially  at  once — for  two  reasons:  first,  she  hated 
herself  so  much  that  she  could  not  like  anybody  just  then; 
next,  this  American  was  entirely  too  American.  He  was  awk 
ward  and  indifferent,  but  not  at  all  with  the  easy  amble 
and  patrician  unconcern  of  an  English  aristocrat. 


12  THE    CUP   OF    FURY 

Marie  Louise  was  American-born  herself,  and  humbly 
born,  at  that,  but  she  liked  extreme  Americanism  never  the 
more.  Perhaps  she  was  a  bit  of  a  snob,  though  fate  was  get 
ting  ready  to  beat  the  snobbery  out  of  her.  And  hers  was 
an  unintentional,  superficial  snobbery,  at  worst.  Some 
people  said  she  was  affected  and  that  she  aped  the  swagger 
dialect.  But  she  had  a  habit  of  taking  on  the  accent  and 
color  of  her  environments.  She  had  not  been  in  England  a 
month  before  she  spoke  Piccadilly  almost  impeccably.  She 
had  caught  French  and  German  intonations  with  equal  speed 
and  had  picked  up  music  by  ear  with  the  same  amazing 
facility  in  the  days  when  certain  kinds  of  music  were  her 
livelihood. 

In  one  respect  her  Englishness  of  accent  was  less  an  imita 
tion  or  an  affectation  than  a  certain  form  of  politeness  and 
modesty.  When  an  Englishwoman  said,  "Cahn't  you?"  it 
seemed  tactless  to  answer,  "No,  I  cann't."  To  respond  to 
"Good  mawning"  with  "Good  morrning"  had  the  effect  of 
a  contradiction  or  a  correction.  She  had  none  of  the  shib 
boleth  spirit  that  leads  certain  people  to  die  or  slay  for  a 
pronunciation.  The  pronunciation  of  the  people  she  was 
talking  to  was  good  enough  for  her.  She  conformed  also 
because  she  hated  to  see  people  listening  less  to  what  she  said 
than  to  the  Yankee  way  she  said  it. 

This  man  Davidge  had  a  superb  brow  and  a  look  of  success, 
but  he  bored  her  before  he  reached  her.  She  made  ready 
for  flight  to  some  other  group.  Then  he  startled  her — by 
being  startled  as  he  caught  sight  of  her.  When  Lady  Webling 
transmitted  him  with  a  murmur  of  his  name  and  a  tender, 
"My  daughter,"  Davidge  stopped  short  and  mumbled: 

"I've  had  the  pleasure  of  meeting  you  before,  somewhere, 
haven't  I?" 

Marie  Louise  snubbed  him  flatly.     "I  think  not." 

He  took  the  slap  with  a  smile.  "Did  I  hear  Lady  Webling 
call  you  her  daughter?" 

Marie  Louise  did  not  explain,  but  answered,  curtly,  "Yes," 
with  the  aristocratic  English  parsimony  that  makes  it  almost 
"Yis." 

"Then  you're  right  and  I'm  wrong.     I  beg  your  pardon." 

"Daon't  mention  it,"  said  Marie  Louise,  and  drew  closer 
to  Lady  Webling  and  the  oncoming  guest.  She  had  the 


THE   CUP  OF   FURY  13 

decency  to  reproach  herself  for  being  beastly  to  the  stranger, 
but  his  name  slipped  at  once  through  the  sieve  of  her 
memory. 

Destiny  is  the  grandiose  title  we  give  to  the  grand  total 
of  a  long  column  of  accidents  when  we  stop  to  tot  up  the 
figures.  So  we  wait  till  that  strange  sum  of  accidents  which 
we  call  a  baby  is  added  up  into  a  living  child  of  determined 
sex  before  we  fasten  a  name  that  changes  an  it  to  a  him  or  a 
her. 

The  accidents  that  result  in  a  love-affair,  too,  we  look  back 
on  and  outline  into  a  definite  road,  and  we  call  that  Fate. 
We  are  great  for  giving  names  to  selected  fragments  of  the 
chaos  of  life. 

In  after  years  Marie  Louise  and  this  man  Davidge  would 
see  something  mystic  and  intended  in  the  meeting  that  was 
to  be  the  detached  prologue  of  their  after  conflicts.  They 
would  quite  misremember  what  really  happened — which  was, 
that  she  retained  no  impression  of  him  at  all,  and  that  he 
called  himself  a  fool  for  mixing  her  with  a  girl  he  had  met  years 
and  years  before  for  just  a  moment,  and  had  never  forgotten 
because  he  had  not  known  her  well  enough  to  forget  her. 

He  had  reason  enough  to  distrust  his  sanity  for  staring  at 
a  resplendent  creature  in  a  London  drawing-room  and  imagin 
ing  for  a  moment  that  she  was  a  long-lost,  long-sought  girl 
of  old  dreams — a  girl  he  had  seen  in  a  cheap  vaudeville 
theater  in  a  Western  state.  She  was  one  of  a  musical  team 
that  played  all  sorts  of  instruments — xylophones,  saxophones, 
trombones,  accordions,  cornets,  comical  instruments  con 
cealed  in  hats  and  umbrellas.  This  girl  had  played  each  of 
them  in  turn,  in  solo  or  with  the  rest  of  the  group.  The 
other  mummers  were  coarse  and  vaude-vulgar,  but  she  had 
captivated  Davidge  with  her  wild  beauty,  her  magnetism, 
and  the  strange  cry  she  put  into  her  music. 

When  she  played  the  trombone  she  looked  to  him  like 
one  of  the  angels  on  a  cathedral  trumpeting  an  apocalyptic 
summons  to  the  dead  to  bloom  from  their  graves.  When 
she  played  the  cornet  it  was  with  a  superhuman  tone  that 
shook  his  emotions  almost  insufferably.  She  had  sung,  too, 
in  four  voices — in  an  imitation  of  a  bass,  a  tenor,  a  contralto, 
and  finally  as  a  lyric  soprano,  then  skipping  from  one  to  the 
other.  They  called  her  "Mamise,  the  Quartet  in  One." 


i4  THE    CUP   OF    FURY 

Davidge  had  thought  her  marvelous  and  had  asked  the 
manager  of  the  theater  to  introduce  him.  The  manager 
thought  him  a  young  fool,  and  Davidge  had  felt  himself 
one  when  he  went  back  to  the  dingy  stage,  where  he  found 
Mamise  among  a  troupe  of  trained  animals  waiting  to  go  on. 
She  was  teasing  a  chittering,  cigar-smoking  trained  ape  on  a 
bicycle,  and  she  proved  to  be  an  extraordinarily  ordinary, 
painfully  plebeian  girl,  common  in  voice  and  diction,  awkward 
and  rather  contemptuous  of  the  stage-door  Johnnie.  Davidge 
had  never  ceased  to  blush,  and  blushed  again  now,  when  he 
recalled  his  labored  compliment,  "I  expect  to  see  your  name 
in  the  electric  lights  some  of  these  days — or  nights,  Miss 
Mamise." 

She  had  grumbled,  "Much  ubbliged!"  and  returned  to  the 
ape,  while  Davidge  slunk  away,  ashamed. 

He  had  not  forgotten  that  name,  though  the  public  had. 
He  had  never  seen  "Mamise"  in  the  electric  lights.  He 
had  never  found  the  name  in  any  dictionary.  He  had  sup 
posed  her  to  be  a  foreigner — Spanish,  Polish,  Czech,  French, 
or  something.  He  had  not  been  able  to  judge  her  nation 
ality  from  the  two  gruff  words,  but  he  had  often  wondered 
what  had  happened  to  her.  She  might  have  been  killed  in  a 
train  wreck  or  been  married  to  the  ape-trainer  or  gone  to 
some  other  horrible  conclusion.  He  had  pretty  well  buried 
her  among  his  forgotten  admirations  and  torments,  when 
lo  and  behold!  she  emerged  from  a  crowd  of  peeresses  and 
plutocrats  in  London. 

He  had  sprung  toward  her  with  a  wild  look  of  recognition 
before  he  had  had  time  to  think  it  over.  He  had  been  re 
buffed  by  a  cold  glance  and  then  by  an  English  intonation 
and  a  fashionable  phrase.  He  decided  that  his  memory 
had  made  a  fool  of  him,  and  he  stood  off,  humble  and  con 
fused. 

But  his  eyes  quarreled  with  his  ears,  and  kept  telling 
him  that  this  tall  beauty  who  ignored  him  so  perfectly,  so 
haughtily,  was  really  his  lost  Mamise. 

If  men  would  trust  their  intuitions  oftener  they  would 
not  go  wrong  so  often,  perhaps,  since  their  best  reasoning 
is  only  guesswork,  after  all.  It  was  not  going  to  be  destiny 
that  brought  Davidge  and  Marie  Louise  together  again  so 
much  as  the  man's  hatred  of  leaving  anything  unfinished — 


THE    CUP   OF    FURY  15 

even  a  dream  or  a  vague  desire.  There  was  no  shaking 
Davidge  off  a  thing  he  determined  on  except  as  you  shake  off 
a  snapping-turtle,  by  severing  its  body  from  its  head. 

A  little  later  Sir  Joseph  sought  the  man  out  and  treated 
him  respectfully,  and  Marie  Louise  knew  he  must  be  some 
body.  She  found  him  staring  at  her  over  Sir  Joseph's  shoulder 
and  puzzling  about  her.  And  this  made  her  wretchedly  un 
comfortable,  for  perhaps,  after  all,  she  fretted,  he  had  indeed 
met  her  somewhere  before,  somewhere  in  one  of  those  odious 
strata  she  had  passed  through  on  her  way  up  to  the  estate  of 
being  called  daughter  by  Lady  Webling. 

She  forgot  her  misgivings  and  was  restored  to  equanimity 
by  the  incursion  of  Polly  Widdicombe  and  her  husband. 
Polly  was  one  of  the  best-dressed  women  in  the  world.  Her 
husband  had  the  look  of  the  husband  of  the  best-dressed 
woman  in  the  world.  Polly  had  a  wiry  voice,  and  made  no 
effort  to  soften  it,  but  she  was  tremendously  smart.  She 
giggled  all  the  time  and  set  people  off  in  her  vicinity,  though 
her  talk  was  rarely  witty  on  its  own  account. 

Laughter  rippled  all  through  her  life.  She  talked  of  her 
griefs  in  a  plucky,  riant  way,  making  eternal  fun  of  herself 
as  a  giddy  fool.  She  carried  a  delightful  jocundity  wherever 
she  went.  She  was  aristocratic,  too,  in  the  postgraduate  de 
gree  of  being  careless,  reckless,  superior  even  to  good  manners. 
She  had  a  good  heart  and  amiable  feelings;  these  made 
manners  enough. 

She  had  lineage  as  well,  for  her  all-American  family  ran 
straight  back  into  the  sixteen  hundreds,  which  was  farther 
than  many  a  duke  dared  trace  his  line.  She  had  traveled  the 
world;  she  had  danced  with  kings,  and  had  made  two  popes 
laugh  and  tweak  her  pointed  chin.  She  wasn't  afraid  of 
anybody,  not  even  of  peasants  and  servants,  or  of  being 
friendly  with  them,  or  angry  with  them. 

Marie  Louise  adored  her.  She  felt  that  it  would  make  no 
difference  to  Polly's  affection  if  she  found  out  all  there  was  to 
find  out  about  Marie  Louise.  And  yet  Polly's  friendship 
did  not  have  the  dull  certainty  of  indestructibility.  Marie 
Louise  knew  that  one  word  wrong  or  one  act  out  of  key  might 
end  it  forever,  and  then  Polly  would  be  her  loud  and  ardent 
enemy,  and  laugh  at  her  instead  of  for  her.  Polly  could 
hate  as  briskly  as  she  could  love. 
2 


16  THE    CUP   OF    FURY 

She  was  in  one  of  her  vitriolic  moods  now  because  of  the 
Lusitania. 

"I  shouldn't  have  come  to-night,"  she  said,  "except  that 
I  want  to  talk  to  a  lot  of  people  about  Germany.  I  want  to 
tell  everybody  I  know  how  much  I  loathe  'em  all.  'The 
Hymn  of  Hate'  is  a  lullaby  to  what  I  feel." 

Polly  was  also  conducting  a  glorious  war  with  Lady  Clif  ton- 
Wyatt.  Lady  C.-W.  had  bullied  everybody  in  London  so 
successfully  that  she  went  straight  up  against  Polly  Widdi- 
combe  without  a  tremor.  She  got  what-for,  and  everybody 
was  delighted.  The  two  were  devoted  enemies  from  then  on, 
and  it  was  beautiful  to  see  them  come  together. 

Lady  Clifton- Wyatt  followed  Polly  up  the  receiving  line  to 
night  and  invited  a  duel,  but  Polly  was  in  no  humor  for  a 
fight  with  anybody  but  Germans.  She  turned  her  full-orbed 
back  on  Lady  C.-W.  and,  so  to  speak,  gnashed  her  shoulder- 
blades  at  her.  Lady  C.-W.  passed  by  without  a  word,  and 
Marie  Louise  was  glad  to  hide  behind  Polly,  for  Marie  Louise 
was  mortally  afraid  of  Lady  C.-W. 

She  saw  the  American  greet  her  as  if  he  had  met  her  before. 
Lady  Clifton- Wyatt  was  positively  polite  to  him.  He  must 
be  a  very  great  man. 

She  heard  Lady  Clifton-Wyatt  say  something  about,  "How 
is  the  new  ship  coming  on?"  and  the  American  said,  "She's 
doing  as  well  as  could  be  expected." 

So  he  was  a  ship-builder.  Marie  Louise  thought  that  his 
must  be  a  heartbreaking  business  in  these  days  when  ships 
were  being  slaughtered  in  such  numbers.  She  asked  Polly 
and  her  husband  if  they  knew  him  or  his  name. 

Widdicombe  shook  his  head.  Polly  laughed  at  her  husband. 
"How  do  you  know?  He  might  be  your  own  mother,  for  all 
you  can  tell.  Put  on  your  distance-glasses,  you  poor  fish." 
She  turned  to  Marie  Louise.  "You  know  how  near-sighted 
Tom  is." 

"An  excellent  fault  in  a  man,"  said  Marie  Louise. 

"Oh,  I  don't  know,"  said  Polly.  "You  can't  trust  even 
the  blind  ones.  And  you'll  notice  that  when  Tom  comes  to 
one  of  these  decollete  dinners,  he  wears  his  reading-glasses." 

All  this  time  Widdicombe  was  taking  out  his  distance- 
glasses,  taking  off  his  reading-glasses  and  pouching  them  and 
putting  them  away,  and  putting  on  his  distance-glasses,  and 


THE    CUP   OF    FURY  17 

from  force  of  habit  putting  their  pouch  away.  Then  he  stared 
at  Davidge,  took  off  his  distance-glasses,  found  the  case  with 
difficulty,  put  them  up,  pocketed  them,  and  stood  blearing 
into  space  while  he  searched  for  his  reading-glasses,  found 
them,  put  the  case  back  in  his  pocket  and  saddled  his  nose 
with  the  lenses. 

Polly  waited  in  a  mockery  of  patience  and  said: 

"Well,  after  all  that,  what?" ' 

"I  don't  know  him,"  said  Widdicombe. 

It  was  a  good  deal  of  an  anticlimax  to  so  much  work. 

Polly  said:  "That  proves  nothing.  Tom's  got  a  near- 
memory,  too.  The  man's  a  pest.  If  he  didn't  make  so  much 
money,  I'd  abandon  him  on  a  door-step." 

That  was  Polly's  form  of  baby-talk.  Everybody  knew  how 
she  doted  on  Tom:  she  called  him  names  as  one  scolds  a  pet 
dog.  Widdicombe  had  the  helpless  manner  of  one,  and  was 
always  at  heel  with  Polly.  But  he  was  a  Titan  financially, 
and  he  was  signing  his  name  now  to  munitions-contracts  as 
big  as  national  debts. 

Marie  Louise  was  summoned  from  the  presence  of  the 
Widdicombes  by  one  of  Lady  Webling's  most  mysterious 
glances,  to  meet  a  new-comer  whom  Lady  Webling  evidently 
regarded  as  a  special  treasure.  Lady  Webling  was  as  wide  as 
a  screen,  and  she  could  always  form  a  sort  of  alcove  in  front 
of  her  by  turning  her  back  on  the  company.  She  made  such 
a  nook  now  and,  taking  Marie  Louise's  hand  in  hers,  put  it 
in  the  hand  of  the  tall  and  staring  man  whose  very  look 
Marie  Louise  found  invasive.  His  handclasp  was  somehow 
like  an  illicit  caress. 

How  strange  it  is  that  with  so  much  modesty  going  about, 
people  should  be  allowed  to  wear  their  hands  naked!  The 
fashion  of  the  last  few  years  compelling  the  leaving  off  of 
gloves  was  not  really  very  nice.  Marie  Louise  realized  it  for 
the  first  time.  Her  fastidious  right  hand  tried  to  escape 
from  the  embrace  of  the  stranger's  fingers,  but  they  clung 
devil-fishily,  and  Lady  Webling's  soft  cushion  palm  was  there 
conniving  in  the  abduction.  And  her  voice  had  a  wheedling 
tone: 

"This  is  my  dear  Nicky  I  have  spoken  of  so  much — Mr. 
Easton,  you  know." 

"Oh  yes,"  said  Marie  Louise. 


i8  THE    CUP   OF    FURY 

"Be  very  nice  to  him,"  said  Lady  Webling.  "He  is  taking 
you  out  to  dinner." 

At  that  moment  the  butler  appeared,  solemn  as  a  long- 
awaited  priest,  and  there  was  such  a  slow  crystallization  as 
follows  a  cry  of  "Fall  in!"  to  weary  soldiers.  The  guests 
were  soon  in  double  file  and  on  the  march  to  the  battle 
field  with  the  cooks. 

Nicky  Easton  still  had  Marie  Louise's  hand;  he  had  carried 
it  up  into  the  crook  of  his  right  arm  and  kept  his  left  hand 
over  it  for  guard.  A  lady  can  hardly  wrench  loose  from  such 
an  attention,  but  Marie  Louise  abhorred  it. 

Nicky  treated  her  as  a  sort  of  possession,  and  she  resented 
his  courtesies.  He  began  too  soon  with  compliments.  One 
hates  to  have  even  a  bunch  of  violets  jabbed  into  one's  nose 
with  the  command,  "Smell!" 

She  disliked  his  accent,  too.  There  was  a  Germanic  some 
thing  in  it  as  faint  as  the  odor  of  high  game.  It  was  a  time 
when  the  least  hint  of  Teutonism  carried  the  stench  of  death 
to  British  nostrils. 

Lady  Webling  and  Sir  Joseph  were  known  to  be  of  German 
birth,  and  their  phrases  carried  the  tang,  but  Sir  Joseph 
had  become  a  naturalized  citizen  ages  ago  and  had  won 
respect  and  affection  a  decade  back.  His  lavish  use  of  his 
money  for  charities  and  for  great  industries  had  won  him  his 
knighthood,  and  while  there  was  a  certain  sniff  of  suspicion 
in  certain  fanatic  quarters  at  the  mention  of  his  name,  those 
who  knew  him  well  had  so  long  ago  forgotten  his  alien  birth 
that  they  forgave  it  him  now. 

As  for  Marie  Louise,  she  no  longer  heeded  the  Prussic  acid 
of  his  speech.  She  was  as  used  to  it  as  to  his  other  little 
mannerisms.  She  did  not  think  of  the  old  couple  as  fat  and 
awkward.  She  did  not  analyze  their  attributes  or  think  of 
their  features  in  detail.  She  thought  of  them  simply  as  them. 
But  Easton  was  new ;  he  brought  in  a  subtle  whiff  of  the  hated 
Germany  that  had  done  the  Lusitania  to  death. 

The  fate  of  the  ship  made  the  dinner  resemble  a  solemn 
wake.  The  triumphs  of  the  chef  were  but  funeral  baked  meats. 
The  feast  was  brilliant  and  large  and  long,  and  it  seemed 
criminal  to  see  such  waste  of  provender  when  so  much  of  the 
world  was  hungry.  The  talk  was  almost  all  of  the  Lusitania 
and  the  deep  damnation  of  her  taking  off.  Many  of  the 


THE    CUP   OF    FURY  19 

guests  had  crossed  the  sea  in  her  graceful  shell,  and  they 
felt  a  personal  loss  as  well  as  a  bitterness  of  rage  at  the  worst 
of  the  German  sea  crimes. 

Davidge  was  seated  remotely  from  Marie  Louise,  far  down 
the  flowery  lane  of  the  table.  She  could  not  see  him  at  all, 
for  the  candles  and  the  roses.  Just  once  she  heard  his  voice 
in  a  lull.  Its  twang  carried  it  all  the  way  up  the  alley: 

"A  man  that  would  kill  a  passenger-ship  would  shoot  a 
baby  in  its  cradle.  When  you  think  how  long  it  takes  to 
build  a  ship,  how  much  work  she  represents,  how  sweet  she 
is  when  she  rides  out  and  all  that — by  Gosh!  there's  no 
word  mean  enough  for  the  sk-oundrels.  There's  nothing 
they  won't  do  now — absolutely  nothing." 

She  heard  no  more  of  him,  and  she  did  not  see  him  again 
that  night.  She  forgot  him  utterly.  Even  the  little  wince 
of  distress  he  gave  her  by  his  provincialism  was  forgotten  in 
the  anguish  her  foster-parents  caused  her. 

For  Marie  Louise  had  a  strange,  an  odious  sensation  that 
Sir  Joseph  and  Lady  Webling  were  not  quite  sincere  in  their 
expressions  of  horror  and  grief  over  the  finished  epic,  the 
Lusitania.  It  was  not  for  lack  of  language;  they  used  the 
strongest  words  they  could  find.  But  there  was  missing  the 
subtile  somewhat  of  intonation  and  gesture  that  actors  call 
sincerity.  Marie  Louise  knew  how  hard  it  is  even  for  a 
great  actor  to  express  his  simplest  thoughts  with  conviction. 
No,  it  was  when  he  expressed  them  best  that  he  was  least 
convincing,  since  an  emotion  that  can  be  adequately  presented 
is  not  a  very  big  emotion ;  at  least  it  does  not  overwhelm  the 
soul.  Inadequacy,  helplessness,  gaucherie,  prove  that  the 
feelings  are  bigger  than  the  eloquence.  They  "get  across  the 
footlights"  between  each  player  on  the  human  stage  and  his 
audience. 

Yes,  that  was  it:  Sir  Joseph  and  Lady  Webling  were  pro 
testing  too  well  and  too  much.  Marie  Louise  hated  herself 
for  even  the  disloyalty  of  such  a  criticism  of  them,  but  she 
was  repelled  somehow  by  such  rhetoric,  and  she  liked  far 
better  the  dour  silence  of  old  Mr.  Verrinder.  He  looked 
a  bishop  who  had  got  into  a  layman's  evening  dress  by  mis 
take.  He  was  something  very  impressive  and  influential  in 
the  government,  nobody  knew  just  what. 

Marie  Louise  liked  still  better  than  Verrinder's  silence 


20  THE    CUP   OF    FURY 

the  distracted  muttering  and  stammering  of  a  young  English 
aviator,  the  Marquess  of  Strathdene,  who  was  recuperating 
from  wounds  and  was  going  up  in  the  air  rapidly  on  the 
Webling  champagne.  He  was  maltreating  his  bread  and 
throwing  in  champagne  with  an  apparent  eagerness  for  the 
inevitable  result.  Before  he  grew  quite  too  thick  to  be 
understood,  he  groaned  to  himself,  but  loudly  enough  to 
be  heard  the  whole  length  and  breadth  of  the  table:  "I 
remember  readin'  about  old  Greek  witch  name  Circe — 
changed  human  beings  into  shape  of  swine.  I  wonder 
who  turned  those  German  swine  into  the  shape  of  human 
beings." 

Marie  Louise  noted  that  Lady  Webling  was  shocked — by 
the  vulgarity,  no  doubt.  "Swine"  do  not  belong  in  dining- 
room  language — only  in  the  platters  or  the  chairs.  Marie 
Louise  caught  an  angry  look  also  in  the  eye  of  Nicholas  Easton, 
though  he,  too,  had  been  incisive  in  his  comments  on  the  theme 
of  the  dinner.  His  English  had  been  uncannily  correct, 
his  phrases  formal  with  the  exactitude  of  a  book  on  syntax 
or  the  dialogue  of  a  gentleman  in  a  novel.  But  he  also  was 
drinking  too  much,  and  as  his  lips  fuddled  he  had  trouble 
with  a  very  formal  "without  which."  It  resulted  first  as 
"veetowit  veech,"  then  as  "whidthout  witch."  He  made  it 
on  the  third  trial. 

Marie  Louise,  turning  her  eyes  his  way  in  wonder,  encoun 
tered  two  other  glances  moving  in  the  same  direction.  Lady 
Webling  looked  anxious,  alarmed.  Mr.  Verrinder's  gaze  was 
merely  studious.  Marie  Louise  felt  an  odd  impression  that 
Lady  Webling  was  sending  a  kind  of  heliographic  warning, 
while  the  look  of  Mr.  Verrinder  was  like  a  search-light  that 
studies  and  registers,  then  moves  away. 

Marie  Louise  disliked  Easton  more  and  more,  but  Lady 
Webling  kept  recommending  him  with  her  solicitous  manner 
toward  him.  She  made  several  efforts,  too,  to  shift  the 
conversation  from  the  Lusitania;  but  it  swung  always  back. 
Much  bewilderment  was  expressed  because  the  ship  was 
not  protected  by  a  convoy.  Many  wondered  why  she  was 
where  she  was  when  she  was  struck,  and  how  she  came  to  take 
that  course  at  all. 

Lady  Clifton- Wyatt,  who  had  several  friends  on  board  and 
was  uncertain  of  their  fate,  was  unusually  fierce  in  blaming 


THE    CUP   OF    FURY  21 

the  government.  She  always  blamed  it  for  everything,  when 
it  was  Liberal.  And  now  she  said: 

"It  was  nothing  short  of  murder  to  have  left  the  poor  ship 
to  steal  in  by  herself  without  protection.  Whatever  was  the 
Admiralty  thinking  of?  If  the  Cabinet  doesn't  fall  for  this, 
we  might  as  well  give  up." 

The  Liberals  present  acknowledged  her  notorious  preju 
dices  with  a  sigh  of  resignation.  But  the  Marquess  of 
Strathdene  rolled  a  foggy  eye  and  a  foggy  tongue  in 
answer: 

"Darlling  llady,  there  must  have  been  war-ships  waitin' 
to  convoy  the  Lusitania;  but  she  didn't  come  to  rendezvous 
because  why?  Because  some  filthy  Zherman  gave  her  a 
false  wireless  and  led  her  into  a  trap." 

This  amazing  theory  with  its  drunken  inspiration  of  plausi 
bility  startled  the  whole  throng.  It  set  eyeballs  rolling  in 
all  directions  like  a  break  in  a  game  of  pool.  Everybody  stared 
at  Strathdene,  then  at  somebody  else.  Marie  Louise's  racing 
gaze  noted  that  Mr.  Verrinder's  eyes  went  slowly  about  again, 
studying  everybody  except  Strathdene. 

Lady  Clifton- Wyatt's  eyes  as  they  ran  simply  expressed  a 
disgust  that  she  put  into  words  with  her  usual  frankness : 

"Don't  be  more  idiotic  than  necess'ry,  my  dear  boy;  there 
are  secret  codes,  you  know." 

" S-secret  codes  I  know?  Secret  codes  the  Germans  know — 
that's  what  you  mean,  sweetheart.  I  don't  know  one  little 
secret,  but  Huns —  Do  you  know  how  many  thousand 
Germans  there  are  loose  in  England — do  you?" 

Lady  Clifton-Wyatt  shook  her  head  impatiently.  "I 
haven't  the  faintest  notion.  Far  more  than  I  wish,  I'm 
sure." 

"I  hope  so,  unless  you  wish  fifty  thousand.  And  God 
knows  how  many  more.  And  I'm  not  alluthing  to  Germans  in 
disguise,  naturalized  Germans — quinine  pills  with  a  little  coat 
ing.  I'm  not  referring  to  you,  of  course,  Sir  Joseph.  Greates' 
respect  for  you.  Ever'body  has.  You  have  done  all  you 
could  to  overcome  the  fatal  error  of  your  parents.  You're  a 
splen'id  gen'l'man.  Your  'xception  proves  rule.  Even  Ger 
mans  can't  all  be  perf'ly  rotten." 

"Thank  you,  Marquess,  thank  you,"  said  Sir  Joseph,  with 
a  natural  embarrassment. 


22  THE    CUP   OF    FURY 

Marie  Louise  noted  the  slight  difference  between  the 
English  "Thank  you"  and  Sir  Joseph's  "Thang  gyou." 

Then  Lady  Webling's  eyes  went  around  the  table,  catching 
up  the  women's  eyes  and  forms,  and  she  led  them  in  a  troop 
from  the  embarrassing  scene.  She  brought  the  embarrass 
ment  with  her  to  the  drawing-room,  where  the  women  sat 
about  smoking  miserably  and  waiting  for  the  men  to  come 
forth  and  take  them  home. 


CHAPTER  III 

'"THERE  must  have  been  embarrassment  enough  left  to 

1    go  round  the  dining-table,  too,  for  in  an  unusually  brief 

while  the  men  flocked  into  the  drawing-room.     And  they 

began  to  plead  engagements  in  offices  or  homes  or  Parliament. 

It  was  not  yet  ten  o'clock  when  the  last  of  the  guests  had 
gone,  except  Nicholas  Easton.  And  Sir  Joseph  took  him  into 
his  own  study.  Easton  walked  a  trifle  too  solemnly  straight, 
as  if  he  had  set  himself  an  imaginary  chalk-line  to  follow. 
He  jostled  against  the  door,  and  as  he  closed  it,  swung  with 
it  uncertainly. 

Lady  Webling  asked  almost  at  once,  with  a  nod  of  the 
head  in  the  direction  of  the  study  door : 

"Well,  my  dear  child,  what  do  you  think  of  Nicky?" 

"Oh,  I  don't  know.     He's  nice,  but— 

"We're  very  fond  of  him,  Sir  Joseph  and  I — and  we  do  hope 
you  will  be." 

Marie  Louise  wondered  if  they  were  going  to  select  a  hus 
band  for  her.  It  was  a  dreadful  situation,  because  there  was 
no  compulsion  except  the  compulsion  of  obligation.  They 
never  gave  her  a  chance  to  do  anything  for  them;  they  were 
always  doing  things  for  her.  What  an  ingrate  she  would 
be  to  rebuff  their  first  real  desire!  And  yet  to  marry  a  man 
she  felt  such  antipathy  for — surely  there  could  be  some  less 
hateful  way  of  obliging  her  benefactors.  She  felt  like  a  cast 
away  on  a  desert,  and  there  was  something  of  the  wilderness 
in  the  immensity  of  the  drawing-room  with  its  crowds  of 
untenanted  divans  and  of  empty  chairs  drawn  into  groups 
as  the  departed  guests  had  left  them. 

Lady  Webling  stood  close  to  Marie  Louise  and  pressed 
for  an  answer. 

"You  don't  really  dislike  Nicky,  do  you?" 

"N-o-o.  I've  not  known  him  long  enough  to  dislike  him 
very  well." 


24  THE   CUP   OF    FURY 

She  tried  to  soften  the  rebuff  with  a  laugh,  but  Lady 
Webling  sighed  profoundly  and  smothered  her  disappointment 
in  a  fond  "Good  night."  She  smothered  the  great  child,  too, 
in  a  hugely  buxom  embrace.  When  Marie  emerged  she  was 
suddenly  reminded  that  she  had  not  yet  spoken  to  Lady 
Webling  of  Fraulein  Ernst's  attack  on  the  children's  souls. 
She  spoke  now. 

"There's  one  thing,  mamma,  I've  been  wanting  to  tell  you 
all  evening.  Please  don't  let  it  distress  you,  but  really  I'm 
afraid  you'll  have  to  get  rid  of  Fraulein." 

Lady  Webling's  voluminous  yawn  was  stricken  midway 
into  a  gasp.  Marie  Louise  told  her  the  story  of  the  diabolical 
prayer.  Lady  Webling  took  the  blow  without  reeling.  She 
expressed  shock,  but  again  expressed  it  too  perfectly. 

She  promised  to  "reprimand  the  foolish  old  soul." 

"To  reprimand  her!"  Marie  Louise  cried.  "You  won't 
send  her  away?" 

"Send  her  away  where,  my  child?  Where  should  we  send 
the  poor  thing?  But  I'll  speak  to  her  very  sharply.  It  was 
outrageous  of  her.  What  if  the  children  should  say  such 
things  before  other  people?  It  would  be  frightful!  Thank 
you  for  telling  me,  my  dear.  And  now  I'm  for  bed!  And 
you  should  be.  You  look  quite  worn  out.  Coming  up?" 

Lady  Webling  laughed  and  glanced  at  the  study  door, 
implying  and  rejoicing  in  the  implication  that  Marie  Louise 
was  lingering  for  a  last  word  with  Easton. 

Really  she  was  trying  to  avoid  climbing  the  long  stairs 
with  Lady  Webling's  arm  about  her.  For  the  first  time  in  her 
life  she  distrusted  the  perfection  of  the  old  soul's  motives. 
She  felt  like  a  Judas  when  Lady  Webling  offered  her  cheek 
for  another  good-night  kiss.  Then  she  pretended  to  read 
a  book  while  she  listened  for  Lady  Webling's  last  puff  as 
she  made  the  top  step. 

At  once  she  poised  for  flight.  But  the  study  door  opened 
and  Easton  came  out.  He  was  bending  down  to  murmur 
into  Sir  Joseph's  downcast  countenance.  Easton  was  saying, 
with  a  tremulous  emotion,  "This  is  the  beginning  of  the  end 
of  England's  control  of  the  sea." 

Marie  Louise  almost  felt  that  there  was  a  quiver  of  eager 
ness  rather  than  of  dread  in  his  tone,  or  that  the  dread  was  the 
awe  of  a  horrible  hope. 


THE    CUP   OF    FURY  25 

Sir  Joseph  was  brooding  and  shaking  his  head.  He  seemed 
to  start  as  he  saw  Marie  Louise.  But  he  smiled  on  her 
dotingly  and  said: 

"You  are  not  gone  to  bed  yet?" 

She  shook  her  head  and  sorrowed  over  him  with  a  sudden 
rush  of  gratitude  to  his  defense.  She  did  not  reward  Easton's 
smile  with  any  favor,  though  he  widened  his  eyes  in  admiration. 

Sir  Joseph  said:  "Good  night,  Nicky.  It  is  long  before 
I  see  you  some  more." 

Nicholas  nodded.  "But  I  shall  see  Miss  Marie  Louise 
quite  soon  now." 

This  puzzled  Marie  Louise.  She  pondered  it  while  Nicky 
bent  and  kissed  her  hand,  heaved  a  guttural,  gluttonous 
"Ah!"  and  went  his  way. 

It  was  nearly  a  week  later  before  she  had  a  clue  to  the 
riddle.  Then  Sir  Joseph  came  home  to  luncheon  unexpectedly. 
He  had  an  envelop  with  him,  sealed  with  great  red  buttons 
of  wax.  He  asked  Marie  Louise  into  his  office  and  said,  with 
an  almost  stealthy  importance: 

"My  darling,  I  have  a  little  favor  to  ask  of  you.  Some 
times,  you  see,  when  I  am  having  a  big  dealing  on  the  Stock 
Exchange  I  do  not  like  that  everybody  knows  my  business. 
Too  many  people  wish  to  know  all  I  do,  so  they  can  be  doing 
the  same.  What  everybody  knows  helps  nobody.  It  is 
my  wish  to  get  this  envelop  to  a  man  without  somebody 
finding  out  something.  Understand?" 

"Yes,  papa!"  Marie  Louise  answered  with  the  utmost 
confidence  that  what  he  did  was  good  and  wise  and  straight. 
She  experienced  a  qualm  when  Sir  Joseph  explained  that 
Nicky  was  the  man.  She  wondered  why  he  did  not  come  to 
the  house.  Then  she  rebuked  herself  for  presuming  to 
question  Sir  Joseph's  motives.  He  had  never  been  anything 
but  good  to  her,  and  he  had  been  so  whole-heartedly  good 
that  for  her  to  give  thought-room  to  a  suspicion  of  him 
was  heinous. 

He  had  business  secrets  and  stratagems  of  tremendous 
financial  moment.  She  had  known  him  to  work  up  great 
drives  on  the  market  and  to  use  all  sorts  of  people  to  prepare 
his  attacks.  She  did  not  understand  big  business  methods. 
She  regarded  them  all  with  childlike  bewilderment.  When, 
then,  Sir  Joseph  asked  her  to  meet  Nicky,  as  if  casually,  in 


26  THE    CUP   OF    FURY 

Regent's  Park,  and  convey  the  envelop  from  her  hand  to 
Nicky's  without  any  one's  witnessing  the  transfer,  she  felt 
the  elation  of  a  child  intrusted  with  an  important  errand. 
So  she  walked  all  the  way  to  Regent's  Park  with  the  long 
strides  of  a  young  woman  out  for  a  constitutional.  She 
found  a  bench  where  she  was  told  to,  and  sat  down  to  bask 
in  the  spring  air,  and  wait. 

By  and  by  Easton  sauntered  along,  lifted  his  hat  to  Marie 
Louise,  and  made  a  great  show  of  surprise.  She  rose  and  gave 
him  her  hand.  She  had  taken  the  precaution  to  wear  gloves 
— also  she  had  the  envelop  in  her  hand.  She  left  it  in 
Nicky's.  He  smuggled  it  into  his  coat  pocket,  and  murmuring, 
"So  sorry  I  can't  stop,"  lifted  his  hat  and  hurried  off. 

Marie  Louise  sat  down  again  and  after  a  time  resumed  her 
constitutional. 

Sir  Joseph  was  full  of  thanks  when  she  saw  him  at  night. 

Some  days  later  he  asked  Marie  Louise  to  meet  Nicky 
outside  a  Bond  Street  shop.  She  was  to  have  a  small  parcel 
and  drop  it.  Nicky  would  stoop  and  pick  it  up  and  hand  her 
in  its  stead  another  of  similar  wrapper.  She  was  to  thank 
him  and  come  home. 

Another  day  Marie  Louise  received  from  Sir  Joseph  a  letter 
and  a  request  to  take  the  children  with  her  for  a  long  walk, 
ending  at  the  Round  Pond  in  Kensington  Gardens.  The 
children  carried  their  private  navies  with  them  and  squatted 
at  the  brim  of  the  huge  basin,  poking  their  reluctant  yachts  to 
sea.  The  boy  Victor  perfected  a  wonderful  scheme  for  using 
a  long  stick  as  a  submarine.  He  thrust  his  arm  under  water 
and  from  a  distance  knocked  his  sister's  sailboat  about  till 
its  canvas  was  afloat  and  it  filled  and  sank.  All  the  while  he 
wore  the  most  distant  of  expressions,  but  canny  little  Bettina 
soon  realized  who  had  caused  this  catastrophe  and  how,  and 
she  went  for  Victor  of  the  U-stick  with  finger-nails  and  feet 
and  nearly  rounded  him  into  the  toy  ocean.  It  evidentlv 
made  a  difference  whose  ship  was  gored. 

Marie  Louise  darted  forward  to  save  Victor  from  a  ducking  as 
well  as  a  trouncing,  and  nearly  ran  over  a  man  who  was  passing. 

It  was  Ross  Davidge,  whiling  away  an  hour  between  ap 
pointments.  He  thought  he  recognized  Marie  Louise,  but 
he  was  not  sure.  Women  in  the  morning  look  so  unlike  their 
evening  selves.  He  dared  not  speak. 


THE   CUP   OF    FURY  27 

Davidge  lingered  around  trying  to  get  up  the  courage  to 
speak,  but  Marie  Louise  was  too  distraught  with  the  feud 
even  to  see  him  when  she  looked  at  him.  She  would  not  have 
known  him,  anyway. 

Davidge  was  confirmed  in  his  guess  at  her  identity  by  the 
appearance  of  the  man  he  had  seen  at  her  side  at  the  dinner. 
But  the  confirmation  was  Davidge's  exile,  for  the  fellow  lifted 
his  hat  with  a  look  of  great  surprise  and  said  to  Marie  Louise, 
"Fancy  finding  you  heah!" 

"Blah!"  said  Davidge  to  himself,  and  went  on  about  his 
business. 

Marie  Louise  did  not  pretend  surprise  at  seeing  Easton,  but 
went  on  scolding  Victor  and  Bettina. 

"If  any  of  these  other  boys  catch  you  playing  submarine 
they'll  submarine  you!" 

And  she  brought  the  proud  Bettina  to  book  with  a,  "You 
were  so  glad  the  Lusitania  was  sunk,  you  see  now  how  it 
feels!" 

She  felt  the  puerile  incongruity  of  the  rebuke,  but  it  suf 
ficed  to  send  Bettina  into  a  cyclone  of  grief.  She  was  already 
one  of  those  who  are  infinitely  indifferent  to  the  sufferings  of 
others  and  infinitesimally  sensitive  to  their  own. 

When  Nicky  heard  the  story  he  gave  Marie  Louise  a  curious 
look  of  disapproval  and  took  Bettina  into  his  lap.  She  was 
also  already  one  of  those  ladies  who  find  a  man's  lap  an  ex 
cellent  consolation.  He  got  rid  of  her  adroitly  and  when 
she  and  Victor  were  once  more. engaged  in  navigation  Nicky 
took  up  the  business  he  had  come  for. 

"May  I  stop  a  moment?"  he  said,  and  sat  down. 

"I  have  a  letter  for  you,"  said  Marie  Louise. 

His  roving  eyes  showed  him  that  the  coast  was  clear,  and 
he  slipped  a  letter  into  her  hand-bag  which  she  opened,  and 
from  it  he  took  the  letter  she  cautiously  disclosed.  He 
chatted  awhile  and  moved  away. 

This  sort  of  meeting  took  place  several  times  in  several 
places.  When  the  crowds  were  too  great  or  a  bobby  loitered 
about,  Nicky  would  murmur  to  Marie  Louise  that  she  had 
better  start  home.  He  would  take  her  arm  familiarly  and 
the  transfer  of  the  parcel  would  be  deftly  achieved. 

This  messenger  service  went  on  for  several  weeks.  Sir 
Joseph  apologized  for  the  trouble  he  gave  Marie  Louise.  He 


28  THE    CUP   OF    FURY 

seemed  to  be  sincerely  unhappy  about  it,  and  his  little  eyes 
in  their  fat,  watery  bags  peered  at  her  with  a  tender  regret 
and  an  ulterior  regret  as  well. 

He  explained  a  dozen  times  that  he  sent  her  because  it  was 
such  an  important  business  and  he  had  no  one  else  to  trust. 
And  Marie  Louise,  for  all  her  anxiety,  was  sadly  glad  of  his 
confidence,  regarded  it  as  sacred,  and  would  not  violate  it  so 
much  as  to  make  the  least  effort  to  learn  what  messages  she 
was  carrying.  Nothing,  of  course,  would  have  been  easier 
than  to  pry  open  one  of  these  envelops.  Sometimes  the 
lapel  was  hardly  sealed.  But  she  would  as  soon  have  peeked 
into  a  bathroom. 

Late  in  June  the  Weblings  left  town  and  settled  in  the  great 
country  seat  Sir  Joseph  had  bought  from  a  bankrupt  American 
who  had  bought  it  from  nobility  gone  back  to  humility. 
Here  life  was  life.  There  were  forests  and  surreptitious 
pheasants,  deer  that  would  almost  but  never  quite  come  to 
call,  unseen  nightingales  that  sang  from  lofty  nave  and 
transept  like  cherubim  all  wings  and  voice. 

The  house  was  usually  full  of  guests,  but  they  were  careful 
not  to  intrude  upon  their  hosts  nor  their  hosts  upon  them. 
The  life  was  like  life  at  a  big  hotel.  There  was  always  a 
little  gambling  to  be  had,  tennis,  golf,  or  music,  or  a  quiet 
chat,  gardens  to  stroll  and  sniff  or  grub  in,  horses  to  ride, 
motors  at  beck  and  call,  solitude  or  company. 

Lady  Clifton- Wyatt  came  down  for  a  week-end  and  struck 
up  a  great  friendship  with  the  majestic  Mrs.  Prothero  from 
Washington,  D.  C.,  so  grand  a  lady  that  even  Lady  C.-W. 
was  a  bit  in  awe  of  her,  so  gracious  a  personage  that  even 
Lady  C.-W.  could  not  pick  a  quarrel  with  her. 

Mrs.  Prothero  gathered  Marie  Louise  under  her  wing  and 
urged  her  to  visit  her  when  she  came  to  America.  But  Polly 
Widdicombe  had  already  pledged  Marie  Louise  to  make 
her  home  her  own  on  that  side  of  the  sea.  Polly  came  down, 
too,  and  had  "the  time  of  her  young  life"  in  doing  a  bit  of 
the  women's  war  work  that  became  the  beautiful  fashion 
of  the  time.  The  justification  of  it  was  that  it  released  men 
for  the  trenches,  but  Polly  insisted  that  it  was  shamefully 
good  sport. 

She  and  Marie  Louise  went  about  in  breeches  and  shirts 
and  worked  like  hostlers  around  the  stables  and  in  the  pad- 


THE    CUP   OF    FURY  29 

docks,  breaking  colts  and  mucking  out  stalls.  They  donned 
the  blouses  and  boots  of  peasants,  and  worked  in  the  fields 
with  rake  and  hoe  and  harrow.  They  even  tried  the  plow, 
but  they  followed  it  too  literally,  and  the  scallopy  furrows 
they  drew  across  the  fields  made  the  yokels  laugh  or  grieve, 
according  to  their  natures. 

The  photographers  were  alive  to  the  piquancy  of  these 
revelations,  and  portraits  of  Marie  Louise  in  knickers  and 
puttees,  and  armed  with  agricultural  weapons,  appeared  in 
the  pages  of  all  the  weeklies  along  with  other  aristocrats  and 
commoners.  Some  of  these  even  reached  America. 

There  was  just  one  flaw  for  Rosalind  in  this  "As  You 
Like  It"  life  and  that  was  the  persistence  of  the  secret  as 
sociation  with  Nicky.  It  was  the  strangest  of  clandestine 
affairs. 

Marie  Louise  had  always  liked  to  get  out  alone  in  a  saddle 
or  behind  the  wheel  of  a  runabout,  and  Sir  Joseph,  when  he 
came  up  from  town,  fell  into  the  habit  of  asking  her  once 
in  a  while  to  take  another  little  note  to  Nicky. 

She  found  him  in  out-of-the-way  places.  He  would  step 
from  a  clump  of  bushes  by  the  road  and  hail  her  car,  or  she 
would  overtake  him  and  offer  him  a  lift  to  his  inn,  or  she 
would  take  horse  and  gallop  across  country  and  find  him 
awaiting  her  in  some  lonely  avenue  or  in  the  twist  of  a  ravine. 

He  was  usually  so  preoccupied  and  furtive  that  he  made  no 
proffer  of  courtship;  but  once  when  he  seemed  peculiarly 
triumphant  he  rode  so  close  to  her  that  their  knees  grided 
and  their  spurs  clashed,  and  he  tried  to  clip  her  in  his  arms. 
She  gathered  her  horse  and  let  him  go,  and  he  plunged  ahead 
so  abruptly  that  the  clinging  Nicky  dragged  Marie  Louise 
from  her  saddle  backward.  He  tried  to  swing  her  to  the 
pommel  of  his  own,  but  she  fought  herself  free  and  came  to 
the  ground  and  was  almost  trampled.  She  was  so  rumpled 
and  so  furious,  and  he  so  frightened,  that  he  left  her  and 
spurred  after  her  horse,  brought  him  back,  and  bothered  her 
no  more  that  day. 

"If  you  ever  annoy  me  again,''  she  said,  "it'll  be  the 
last  you'll  see  of  me." 

She  was  too  useful  to  be  treated  as  a  mere  beauty,  and  she 
had  him  cowed. 

It  was  inevitable  that  Marie  Louise,  being  silently  urged 


30  THE    CUP   OF    FURY 

to  love  Nicky,  should  helplessly  resist  the  various  appeals  in 
his  behalf. 

There  is  no  worse  enemy  to  love  than  recommendation. 
There  is  something  froward  about  the  passion.  It  hangs  back 
like  a  fretful  child,  loathing  what  is  held  out  for  its  temptation, 
longing  for  the  forbidden,  the  sharp,  the  perilous. 

Next  to  being  asked  to  love,  trying  to  love  is  the  gravest 
impediment.  Marie  Louise  kept  telling  herself  that  she  ought 
to  marry  Nicky,  and  herself  kept  refusing  to  obey. 

From  very  perversity  her  heart  turned  to  other  interests. 
She  was  desperately  in  love  with  soldiers  en  masse  and  in 
dividually.  There  was  safety  in  numbers  and  a  canceling 
rivalry  between  those  who  were  going  out  perhaps  to  death 
and  those  who  had  come  back  from  the  jaws  of  death  vari 
ously  the  worse  for  the  experience. 

The  blind  would  have  been  irresistible  in  their  groping 
need  of  comfort,  if  there  had  not  been  the  maimed  of  body 
or  mind  putting  out  their  incessant  pleas  for  a  gramercy  of 
love.  Those  whose  wounds  were  hideous  took  on  an  uncanny 
beauty  from  their  sacrifice. 

She  busied  herself  about  them  and  suffered  ecstasies  of 
pity. 

She  wanted  to  go  to  France  and  get  near  to  danger,  to  help 
the  freshly  wounded,  to  stanch  the  spouting  arteries,  to  lend 
courage  to  the  souls  dismayed  by  the  first  horror  of  the 
understanding  that  thenceforth  they  must  go  through  life 
piecemeal. 

But  whenever  she  made  application  she  met  some  vague 
rebuff.  Her  appeals  were  passed  on  and  on  and  the  blame 
for  their  failure  was  referred  always  to  some  remote  personage 
impossible  to  reach. 

Eventually  it  dawned  on  her  that  there  was  actually  an 
official  intention  to  keep  her  out  of  France.  This  stupefied 
her  for  a  time.  One  day  it  came  over  her  that  she  was 
herself  suspect.  This  seemed  ridiculous  beyond  words  in 
in  view  of  her  abhorrence  of  the  German  cause  in  large  and  in 
detail.  Ransacking  her  soul  for  an  explanation,  she  ran  upon 
the  idea  that  it  was  because  of  her  association  with  the 
Weblings. 

She  was  ashamed  to  have  given  such  a  thought  passage 
through  her  mind.  But  it  came  back  as  often  as  she  drove 


THE    CUP   OF    FURY  31 

it  out  and  then  the  thought  began  to  hover  about  her  that 
perhaps  the  suspicion  was  not  so  insane  as  she  believed. 
The  public  is  generally  unreasonable,  but  its  intuitions,  like 
a  woman's,  are  the  resultants  of  such  complex  instincts  that 
they  are  above  analysis. 

But  the  note-carrying  went  on,  and  she  could  not  escape 
from  the  suspicion  or  its  shadow  of  disgrace.  Like  a  hateful 
buzzard  it  was  always  somewhere  in  her  sky. 

Once  the  suspicion  had  domiciled  itself  in  her  world,  it  was 
incessantly  confirmed  by  the  minutiae  of  e very-day  existence. 
The  interchange  of  messages  with  Nicky  Easton  grew  unex- 
plainable  on  any  other  ground.  The  theory  of  secret  financial 
dealings  looked  ludicrous;  or  if  the  dealings  were  financial, 
they  must  be  some  of  the  trading  with  the  enemy  that  was 
so  much  discussed  in  the  papers. 

She  felt  that  she  had  been  conniving  in  one  of  the  spy-plots 
that  all  the  Empire  was  talking  about.  She  grew  afraid 
to  the  last  degree  of  fear.  She  saw  herself  on  the  scaffold. 
She  resolved  to  carry  no  more  messages. 

But  the  next  request  of  Sir  Joseph's  found  her  complying 
automatically.  It  had  come  to  be  her  habit  to  do  what 
he  asked  her  to  do,  and  to  take  pride  in  the  service  as 
a  small  instalment  on  her  infinite  debt.  And  every  time 
her  resentment  rose  to  an  overboiling  point,  Sir  Joseph 
or  Lady  Webling  would  show  her  some  exquisite  kindness 
or  do  some  great  public  service  that  won  commendation 
from  on  high. 

One  day  when  she  was  keyed  up  to  protest  Lady  Webling 
discharged  Fraulein  Ernst  for  her  pro-Germanism  and  en 
gaged  an  English  nurse.  Another  day  Lady  Webling  asked 
her  to  go  on  a  visit  to  a  hospital.  There  she  lavished  tender 
ness  on  the  British  wounded  and  ignored  the  German.  How 
could  Marie  Louise  suspect  her  of  being  anti-British?  An 
other  time  when  Marie  Louise  was  almost  ready  to  rebel 
she  saw  Sir  Joseph's  name  heading  a  war  subscription,  and 
that  night  he  made,  at  a  public  meeting,  a  speech  denouncing 
Germany  in  terms  of  vitriol. 

Alter  all,  Marie  Louise  was  not  English.  And  America  was 
still  neutral.  The  President  had  wrung  from  Germany  a 
promise  of  better  behavior,  and  in  a  sneaking  way  the  promise 
was  kept,  with  many  a  violation  quickly  apologized  for. 

3 


32  THE    CUP   OF    FURY 

Still,  England  wrestled  for  her  life.  There  seemed  to  be 
hardly  room  in  the  papers  for  the  mere  names  of  the  dead 
and  the  wounded,  and  those  still  more  pitiable  ones,  the 
missing. 

Marie  Louise  lost  many  a  friend,  and  all  of  her  friends  lost 
and  lost.  She  wore  herself  out  in  suffering  for  others,  in  visit 
ing  the  sick,  the  forlorn,  the  anxious,  the  newly  bereaved. 

The  strain  on  Marie  Louise's  heart  was  the  more  exhausting 
because  she  had  a  craven  feeling  all  the  while  that  perhaps  she 
was  being  used  somehow  as  a  tool  for  the  destruction  of  Eng 
lish  plans  and  men.  She  tried  to  get  the  courage  to  open 
one  of  those  messages,  but  she  was  afraid  that  she  might  find 
confirmation.  She  made  up  her  mind  again  and  again  to 
put  the  question  point-blank  to  Sir  Joseph,  but  her  tongue 
faltered.  If  he  were  guilty,  he  would  deny  it;  if  he  were 
innocent,  the  accusation  would  break  his  heart.  She  hated 
Nicky  too  much  to  ask  him.  He  would  lie  in  any  case. 

She  was  nagged  incessantly  by  a  gadfly  of  conscience  that 
buzzed  in  her  ears  the  counsel  to  tell  the  police.  Sometimes 
on  her  way  to  a  tryst  with  Easton  a  spirit  in  her  feet  led  her 
toward  a  police  station,  but  another  spirit  carried  her  past, 
for  she  would  visualize  the  sure  consequences  of  such  an 
exposure.  If  her  suspicions  were  false,  she  would  be  exposed 
as  a  combination  of  dastard  and  dolt.  If  they  were  true, 
she  would  be  sending  Sir  Joseph  and  Lady  Webling  perhaps 
to  the  gallows. 

To  betray  those  who  had  been  so  angelic  to  her  was  simply 
unthinkable. 

Irresolution  and  meditation  made  her  a  very  Hamlet  of 
postponement  and  inaction.  Hamlet  had  only  a  ghost  for 
counselor,  and  a  mother  to  be  the  first  victim  of  his  rashness. 
No  wonder  he  hesitated.  And  Marie  Louise  had  only  hyster 
ical  suspicion  to  account  for  her  thoughts;  and  the  victims 
of  her  first  step  would  be  the  only  father  and  mother  she 
had  ever  really  known.  America  itself  was  another  Hamlet 
of  debate  and  indecision,  weighing  evidences,  pondering 
theories,  deferring  the  sword,  hoping  that  Germany  would 
throw  away  the  baser  half.  And  all  the  while  time  slid  away, 
lives  slid  away,  nations  fell. 

In  the  autumn  the  town  house  was  opened  again.  There 
was  much  thinly  veiled  indignation  in  the  papers  and  in  the 


THE    CUP   OF    FURY 


33 


circulation  of  gossip  because  of  Sir  Joseph's  prominence  in 
English  life.  The  Germans  were  so  relentless  and  so  various 
in  their  outrages  upon  even  the  cruel  usages  of  combat  that 
the  sound  of  a  German  name  grew  almost  unbearable.  People 
were  calling  for  Sir  Joseph's  arrest.  Others  scoffed  at  the 
cruelty  and  cowardice  of  such  hysteria. 

A  once-loved  prince  of  German  blood  had  been  frozen 
out  of  the  navy,  and  the  internment  camps  were  growing 
like  boom  towns.  Yet  other  Germans  somehow  were  granted 
an  almost  untrammeled  freedom,  and  thousands  who  had 
avoided  evil  activity  were  tolerated  throughout  the  war. 

Sir  Joseph  kept  retorting  to  suspicion  with  subscription. 
He  took  enormous  quantities  of  the  government  loans.  His 
contributions  to  the  Red  Cross  and  the  multitudinous  charities 
were  more  like  endowments  than  gifts.  How  could  Marie 
Louise  be  vile  enough  to  suspect  him? 

Yet  in  spite  of  herself  she  resolved  at  last  to  refuse  further 
messenger  service.  Then  she  learned  that  Nicky  had  left 
England  and  gone  to  America  on  most  important  financial 
business  of  a  most  confidential  nature. 

Marie  Louise  was  too  glad  of  her  release  to  ask  questions. 
She  rejoiced  that  she  had  not  insulted  her  foster-parents 
with  mutiny,  and  she  drudged  at  whatever  war  work  the 
committees  found  for  her.  They  found  nothing  very  pict 
uresque,  but  the  more  toilsome  her  labor  was  the  more  it 
served  for  absolution  of  any  evil  she  might  have  done. 

And  now  that  the  dilemma  of  loyalty  was  taken  from 
her  soul,  her  body  surrendered  weakly.  She  had  time  to  fall 
ill.  It  was  enough  that  she  got  her  feet  wet.  Her  conva 
lescence  was  slow  even  in  the  high  hills  of  Matlock. 

The  winter  had  passed,  and  the  summer  of  1916  had  come 
before  Marie  Louise  was  herself.  The  Weblings  had  moved 
out  to  the  country  again;  the  flowers  were  back  in  the  gardens; 
the  deer  and  the  birds  were  in  their  summer  garb  and  mood. 
But  now  the  house  guests  were  all  wounded  soldiers  and 
nurses.  Sir  Joseph  had  turned  over  his  estate  for  a  war 
hospital. 

Lady  Webling  went  among  her  visitors  like  a  queen  making 
her  rounds.  Sir  Joseph  squandered  money  on  his  distinguished 
company.  Marie  Louise  joined  them  and  took  what  comfort 
she  could  in  such  diminution  of  pain  and  such  contributions 


34  THE    CUP   OF    FURY 

of  war  power  as  were  permitted  her.  Those  were  the  only 
legitimate  happinesses  in  the  world. 

The  tennis-courts  were  peopled  now  with  players  glad  of 
one  arm  or  one  eye  or  even  a  demodeled  face.  On  the  golf- 
links  crutched  men  hobbled.  The  horses  in  the  stables  bore 
only  partial  riders.  The  card-parties  were  squared  by  players 
using  hands  made  by  hand.^  The  music-room  resounded 
with  five-finger  improvisations  and  with  vocalists  who  had 
little  but  their  voices  left.  They  howled,  "Keep  your  head 
down,  Fritzie  boy,"  or,  "We  gave  them  hell  at  Neuve  Chapelle, 
and  here  we  are  and  here  we  are  again,"  or  moaned  love-songs 
with  a  sardonic  irony. 

And  the  guests  at  tea !  And  the  guests  who  could  not  come 
to  tea! 

Young  Hawdon  was  there.  "Well,  Marie  Louise,"  he  had 
said,  "I'm  back  from  France,  but  not  in  toto.  Fact  is,  I'm 
neither  here  nor  there.  Quite  a  sketchy  party  you  have. 
But  we'll  charge  it  all  to  Germany,  and  some  day  we'll  collect. 
Some  day!  Some  day!"  And  he  burst  into  song. 

The  wonder  was  that  there  was  so  much  bravery.  At  times 
there  was  hilarity,  but  it  was  always  close  to  tears. 

The  Weblings  went  back  to  London  early  and  took  Marie 
Louise  with  them.  She  wanted  to  stay  with  the  poor  soldiers, 
but  Sir  Joseph  said  that  there  was  just  as  much  for  her  to 
do  in  town.  There  was  no  lack  of  poor  soldiers  anywhere. 
Besides,  he  needed  her,  he  said.  This  set  her  heart  to  plung 
ing  with  the  old  fear.  But  he  was  querulous  and  irascible  now 
adays,  and  Lady  Webling  begged  her  not  to  excite  him,  for 
she  was  afraid  of  a  paralysis.  He  had  the  look  of  a  Damocles 
living  under  the  sword. 

The  news  from  America  was  more  encouraging  to  England 
and  to  the  Americans  in  England.  German  spies  were  being 
arrested  with  amazing  frequence.  Ambassadors  were  flounder 
ing  in  hot  water  and  setting  up  a  large  traffic  in  return- 
tickets.  Even  the  trunks  of  certain  "Americans"  were 
searched — men  and  women  who  were  amazed  to  learn  that 
curious  German  documents  had  got  mixed  up  in  their  own 
effects.  Some  most  peculiar  checks  and  receipts  turned  up. 

It  was  shortly  after  a  cloudy  account  of  one  of  these  trunk- 
raids  had  been  published  in  the  London  papers  that  Sir 
Joseph  had  his  first  stroke  of  paralysis. 


THE   CUP   OF    FURY  35 

Sir  Joseph  was  in  pitiful  case.  His  devotion  to  Marie 
Louise  was  heartbreaking.  Her  sympathy  had  not  been  ex 
hausted,  but  schooled  rather  by  its  prolonged  exercise,  and 
she  gave  the  forlorn  old  wretch  a  love  and  a  tenderness  that 
had  been  wrought  to  a  fine  art  without  losing  any  of  its 
spontaneous  reality. 

At  first  he  could  move  only  a  bit  of  the  great  bulk,  sprawled 
like  a  snowdrift  under  the  sheet.  He  was  helpless  as  a  shat 
tered  soldier,  but  slowly  he  won  back  his  faculties  and  his 
members.  The  doors  that  were  shut  between  his  brain  and 
his  powers  opened  one  by  one,  and  he  became  a  man  again. 

The  first  thing  he  wrote  with  his  rediscovered  right  hand 
was  his  signature  to  a  document  his  lawyer  brought  him  after 
a  consultation.  It  was  a  transfer  of  twenty  thousand  pounds 
in  British  war  bonds, "for  services  rendered  and  other  valuable 
considerations,"  to  his  dear  daughter  Marie  Louise  Webling. 

When  the  warrant  was  handed  to  her  with  the  bundle  of 
securities,  Marie  Louise  was  puzzled,  then  shocked  as  the  old 
man  explained  with  his  still  uncertain  lips.  When  she  under 
stood,  she  rejected  the  gift  with  horror.  Sir  Joseph  pleaded 
with  her  in  a  thick  speech  that  had  relapsed  to  an  earlier 
habit. 

"I  am  theenkink  how  close  I  been  by  dyink.  Du  bist — 
zhoo  are  in  my  vwill,  of  coorse,  but  a  man  says,  'I  vwill,'  and 
some  heirs  says,  'You  vwon't  yet!'  Better  I  should  make 
sure  of  somethink." 

"But  I  don't  want  money,  papa — not  like  this.  And  I 
won't  have  you  speak  of  wills  and  such  odious  things." 

"You  have  been  like  our  own  daughter  only  more  obeyink 
as  poor  Hedwig.  You  should  not  make  me  sick  by  to 
refuse." 

She  could  only  quiet  him  by  accepting  the  wealth  and 
bringing  him  the  receipt  for  its  deposit  in  a  safe  of  her  own. 

When  he  was  once  more  able  to  hoist  his  massive  body  to 
its  feet  and  to  walk  to  his  own  door,  he  said: 

"Mein — my  Gott!  Look  at  the  calendar  once.  It  is  nine 
teen  seventeen  already." 

He  ceased  to  be  that  simple,  primitive  thing,  a  sick  man; 
he  became  again  the  financier.  She  heard  of  him  anew  on 
war-industry  boards.  She  saw  his  name  on  lists  of  big 
subscriptions. 


36  THE    CUP    OF    FURY 

He  began  to  talk  anew  of  Nicky,  and  he  spoke  with  unusual 
anxiety  of  U-boats.  He  hoped  that  they  would  have  a  bad 
week.  There  was  no  questioning  his  sincerity  in  this. 

And  one  evening  he  came  home  in  a  womanish  flurry.  He 
pinched  the  ear  of  Marie  Louise  and  whispered  to  her: 

"Nicky  is  here  in  England — safe  after  the  sea  voyage. 
Be  a  nize  girl,  and  you  shall  see  him  soon  now." 


CHAPTER  IV 

next  morning  Marie  Louise,  waking,  found  her  win- 
dows  opaque  with  fog.  The  gardens  she  usually  looked 
over,  glistening  green  all  winter  through,  were  gone,  and  in 
their  place  was  a  vast  bale  of  sooty  cotton  packed  so  tight 
against  the  glass  that  her  eyes  could  not  pierce  to  the  sill. 

Marie  Louise  went  down  to  breakfast  in  a  room  like  a  smoky 
tunnel  where  the  lights  burned  sickly.  She  was  in  a  murky 
and  suffocating  humor,  but  Sir  Joseph  was  strangely  content 
for  the  hour  and  the  air.  He  ate  with  the  zest  of  a  boy  on  a 
holi-morn,  and  beckoned  her  into  his  study,  where  he  con 
fided  to  her  great  news: 

"Nicky  telephoned  me.  He  brings  wonderful  news  out  of 
America.  Big  business  he  has  done.  He  cannot  come  yet  by 
our  house,  ior  even  servants  must  not  see  him  here.  So  you 
shall  go  and  meet  him.  You  take  your  own  little  car,  and  go 
most  careful  till  you  find  Hyde  Park  gate.  Inside  you  stop 
and  get  out  to  see  if  something  is  matter  with  the  engine. 
A  man  is  there — Nicky.  He  steps  in  the  car.  You  get  in 
and  drive  slowly — so  slowly.  Give  him  this  letter — put  in 
bosom  of  dress  not  to  lose.  He  tells  you  maybe  something, 
and  he  gives  you  envelop.  Then  he  gets  out,  and  you  come 
home  —  but  carefully.  Don't  let  one  of  those  buses  run 
you  over  in  the  fog.  I  should  not  risk  you  if  not  most 
important." 

Marie  Louise  pleaded  illness,  and  fear  of  never  finding  the 
place.  But  Sir  Joseph  stared  at  her  with  such  wonder  and 
pain  that  she  yielded  hastily,  took  the  envelop,  folded  it 
small,  thrust  it  into  her  chest  pocket  and  went  out  to  the 
garage,  where  she  could  hardly  bully  the  chauffeur  into  letting 
her  take  her  own  car.  He  put  all  the  curtains  on,  and  she 
pushed  forth  into  obfuscation  like  a  one-man  submarine. 
There  was  something  of  the  effect  of  moving  along  the  floor 


38  THE    CUP   OF    FURY 

of  the  sea.  The  air  was  translucent,  a  little  like  water-depths, 
but  everything  was  blur. 

Luck  was  with  her.  She  neither  ran  over  nor  was  run  over. 
But  she  was  so  tardy  in  finding  the  gate,  and  Nicky  was  so 
damp,  so  chilled,  and  so  uneasy  with  the  apparitions  and  the 
voices  that  had  haunted  him  in  the  fog  that  he  said  nothing 
more  cordial  than: 

"At  last!     So  you  come!" 

He  climbed  in,  shivering  with  cold  or  fear.  And  she  ran 
the  car  a  little  farther  into  the  nebulous  depths.  She  gave 
him  the  letter  from  Sir  Joseph  and  took  from  him  another. 

Nicky  did  not  care  to  tarry. 

"I  should  get  back  to  my  house  with  this  devil's  cold  I've 
caught,"  he  said.  "Do  you  still  have  no  sun  in  this  be- 
damned  England?" 

The  "you"  struck  Marie  Louise  as  odd  coming  from  a  pro 
fessed  Englishman,  even  if  he  did  lay  the  blame  for  his  accent 
on  years  spent  in  German  banking-houses. 

"How  did  you  find  the  United  States?"  Marie  Louise  asked, 
with  a  sudden  qualm  of  homesickness. 

"Those  United  States!    Ha!   United  about  what?    Money!" 

"I  think  you  can  get  along  better  afoot,"  said  Marie  Louise, 
as  she  made  a  turn  and  slipped  through  the  pillars  of  the  gate. 

"Au  refoir!"  said  Nicky,  and  he  dived  out,  slamming  the 
door  back  of  him. 

That  night  there  was  one  of  Sir  Joseph's  dinners.  But 
almost  nobody  came,  except  Lieutenant  Hawdon  and  old 
Mr.  Verrinder.  Sir  Joseph  and  Lady  Webling  seemed  more 
frightened  than  insulted  by  the  last-moment  regrets  of  the 
guests.  Was  it  an  omen? 

It  was  not  many  days  before  Sir  Joseph  asked  Marie  Louise 
to  carry  another  envelop  to  Nicky.  She  went  out  alone, 
shuddering  in  the  wet  and  edged  air.  She  found  the  bench 
agreed  on,  and  sat  waiting,  craven  and  mutinous.  Nicky 
did  not  come,  but  another  man  passed  her,  looked  searchingly, 
turned  and  came  back  to  murmur  under  his  lifted  hat: 

"Miss  Webling?" 

She  gave  him  her  stingiest  "Yis." 

"Mr.  Easton  asked  me  to  meet  you  in  his  place,  and 
explain." 

"He  is  not  coming?" 


THE    CUP    OF    FURY  39 

"He  can't.  He  is  ill.  A  bad  cold  only.  He  has  a  letter 
for  you.  Have  you  one  for  him?" 

Marie  Louise  liked  this  man  even  less  than  she  would  have 
liked  Nicky  himself.  She  was  alarmed,  and  showed  it.  The 
stranger  said: 

"I  am  Mr.  von  Groner,  a  frient  of — of  Nicky's." 

Marie  Louise  vibrated  between  shame  and  terror.  But 
von  Groner's  credentials  were  good;  it  was  surely  Nicky's 
hand  that  had  penned  the  lines  on  the  envelop.  She  took  it 
reluctantly  and  gave  him  the  letter  she  carried. 

She  hastened  home.  Sir  Joseph  was  in  a  sad  flurry,  but  he 
accepted  the  testimony  of  Nicky's  autograph. 

The  next  day  Marie  Louise  must  go  on  another  errand. 
This  time  her  envelop  bore  the  name  of  Nicky  and  the  added 
line,  "Kindness  of  Mr.  von  Groner" 

Von  Groner  tried  to  question  Marie  Louise,  but  her  wits 
were  in  an  absolute  maelstrom  of  terror.  She  was  afraid  of 
him,  afraid  that  he  represented  Nicky,  afraid  that  he  did  not, 
afraid  that  he  was  a  real  German,  afraid  that  he  was  a  pre 
tended  spy,  or  an  English  secret-service  man.  She  was  afraid 
of  Sir  Joseph  and  his  wife,  afraid  to  oSey  them  or  disobey 
them,  to  love  them  or  hate  them,  betray  them  or  be  betrayed. 
She  had  lost  all  sense  of  direction,  of  impetus,  of  desire. 

She  saw  that  Sir  Joseph  and  Lady  Webling  were  in  a  state 
of  panic,  too.  They  smiled  at  her  with  a  wan  pity  and  fear. 
She  caught  them  whispering  often.  She  saw  them  cling  to 
gether  with  a  devotion  that  would  have  been  a  burlesque  in  a 
picture  seen  by  strangers.  It  would  have  been  almost  as 
grotesque  as  a  view  of  a  hippopotamus  and  his  mate  cowering 
hugely  together  and  nuzzling  each  other  under  the  menace 
of  a  lightning-storm. 

Marie  Louise  came  upon  them  once  comparing  the  envelop 
she  had  just  brought  with  other  letters  of  Nicky's.  Sir 
Joseph  slipped  them  into  a  book,  then  took  one  of  them  out 
cautiously  and  showed  it  to  Marie  Louise. 

"Does  that  look  really  like  the  writink  from  Nicky?" 

"Yes,"  she  said,  then,  "No,"  then,  "Of  course,"  then, 
"I  don't  know." 

Lady  Webling  said,  "Sit  down  once,  my  child,  and  tell  me 
just  how  this  man  von  Groner  does,  acts,  speaks." 

She  told  them.     They  quizzed  her.     She  was  afraid  that 


40  THE    CUP   OF    FURY 

they  would  take  her  into  their  confidence,  but  they  exchanged 
querying  looks  and  signaled  caution. 

Sir  Joseph  said:  "Strange  how  long  Nicky  stays  sick,  and 
his  memory — little  things  he  mixes  up.  I  wonder  is  he  dead 
yet.  Who  knows?" 

"Dead?"  Marie  Louise  cried.  "Dead,  and  sends  you 
letters?" 

"Yes,  but  such  a  funny  letter  this  last  one  is.  I  think  I 
write  him  once  more  and  ask  him  is  he  dead  or  crazy,  maybe. 
Anyway,  I  think  I  don't  feel  so  very  good  now — mamma  and 
I  take  maybe  a  little  journey.  You  come  along  with,  yes?" 

A  rush  of  desperate  gratitude  to  the  only  real  people  in 
her  world  led  her  to  say: 

"Whatever  you  want  me  to  do  is  what  I  want  to  do — or 
wherever  to  go." 

Lady  Webling  drew  her  to  her  breast,  and  Sir  Joseph  held 
her  hand  in  one  of  his  and  patted  it  with  the  flabby  other, 
mumbling: 

"Yes,  but  what  is  it  we  want  you  to  do?" 

From  his  eyes  came  a  scurry  of  tears  that  ran  in  panic 
among  the  folds  of  his  cheeks.  He  shook  them  off  and  smiled, 
nodding  and  still  patting  her  hand  as  he  said: 

"Better  I  write  one  letter  more  for  Mr.  von  Groner.  I  esk 
him  to  come  himself  after  dark  to-night  now." 

Marie  Louise  waited  in  her  room,  watching  the  sunlight 
die  out  of  the  west.  She  felt  somehow  as  if  she  were  a  prisoner 
in  the  Tower,  a  princess  waiting  for  the  morrow's  little  visit 
to  the  scaffold.  Or  did  the  English  shoot  women,  as  Edith 
Cavell  had  been  shot? 

There  was  a  knock  at  the  door,  but  it  was  not  the  turnkey. 
It  was  the  butler  to  murmur,  "Dinner,  please."  She  went 
down  and  joined  mamma  and  papa  at  the  table.  There  were 
no  guests  except  Terror  and  Suspense,  and  both  of  them  wore 
smiling  masks  and  made  no  visible  sign  of  their  presence. 

After  dinner  Marie  Louise  had  her  car  brought  round  to  the 
door.  There  was  nothing  surprising  about  that.  Women 
had  given  up  the  ancient  pretense  that  their  respectability 
was  something  that  must  be  policed  by  a  male  relative  or 
squire  except  in  broad  daylight.  Neither  vice  nor  malaria 
was  believed  any  longer  to  come  from  exposure  to  the  night  air ; 
nor  was  virtue  regarded  like  a  sum  of  money  that  must  not  be 


THE    CUP    OF    FURY  41 

risked  by  being  carried  about  alone  after  dark.  It  had  been 
easy  enough  to  lose  under  the  old  regime. 

So  Marie  Louise  launched  out  in  her  car  much  as  a  son  of 
the  family  might  have  done.  She  drove  to  a  little  square  too 
dingily  middle  class  to  require  a  policeman.  She  sounded  her 
horn  three  squawks  and  swung  open  the  door,  and  a  man 
waiting  under  an  appointed  tree  stepped  from  its  shadow 
and  into  the  shadow  of  the  car  before  it  stopped.  She  dropped 
into  high  speed  and  whisked  out  of  the  square. 

"You  have  for  me  a  message,"  said  Mr.  von  Groner. 

"Yes.     Sir  Joseph  wants  to  see  you." 

"Me?" 

"Yes — at  the  house.     We'll  go  tnere  at  once  if  you  please." 

"Certainly.  Delighted.  But  Nicky — I  ought  to  telephone 
him  I  shall  be  gone." 

"Nicky  is  well  enough  to  telephone?" 

"Not  to  come  to  the  telephone,  but  there  is  a  servant.  If 
you  will  please  stop  somewhere.  I  shall  be  a  moment  only." 

Marie  Louise  felt  that  she  ought  not  to  stop,  but  she  could 
hardly  kidnap  the  man.  So  she  drew  up  at  a  shop  and  von 
Groner  left  her,  her  heart  shaking  her  with  a  faint  tremor 
like  that  of  the  engine  of  her  car. 

Von  Groner  returned  promptly,  but  he  said:  "I  think  we 
should  not  go  too  straight  to  your  father's  house.  Might 
be  we  are  followed.  We  can  tell  soon.  Go  in  the  park,  please, 
and  suddenly  stop,  turn  round,  and  I  look  at  what  cars  follow." 

She  let  him  command  her.  She  was  letting  everybody 
command  her;  she  had  no  destination,  no  North  Star  in  her 
life.  Von  Groner  kept  her  dodging  about  Regent's  Park  till 
she  grew  angry. 

"This  seems  rather  silly,  doesn't  it?  I  am  going  home. 
Sir  Joseph  has  worries  enough  without — " 

"Ah,  he  has  worries?" 

She  did  not  answer.  The  eagerness  in  his  voice  did  not 
please  her.  He  kept  up  a  rain  of  questions,  too,  but  she 
answered  them  all  by  referring  him  to  Sir  Joseph. 

At  last  they  reached  the  house.  As  they  got  out,  two  men 
closed  in  on  the  car  and  peered  into  their  faces.  Von  Groner 
snapped  at  them,  and  they  fell  back. 

Marie  Louise  had  taken  along  her  latchkey.  She  opened 
the  door  herself  and  led  von  Groner  to  Sir  Joseph's  room. 


42  THECUPOFFURY 

As  she  lifted  her  hand  to  knock  she  heard  Lady  Webling 
weeping  frantically,  crying  out  something  incoherent.  Marie 
Louise  fell  back  and  motioned  von  Groner  away,  but  he  pushed 
the  door  open  and,  taking  her  by  the  elbow,  thrust  her 
forward. 

Lady  Webling  stopped  short  with  a  wail.  Sir  Joseph, 
who  had  been  trying  to  quiet  her  by  patting  her  hand,  paused 
with  his  palm  uplifted. 

Before  Marie  Louise  could  speak  she  saw  that  the  old 
couple  was  not  alone.  By  the  mantel  stood  Mr.  Verrinder. 
By  the  door,  almost  touching  Marie  Louise,  was  a  tall,  grim 
person  she  had  not  seen.  He  closed  the  door  behind  von 
Groner  and  Marie  Louise. 

Mr.  Verrinder  said,  "Be  good  enough  to  sit  down."  To 
von  Groner  he  said,  "How  are  you,  Bickford?" 


CHAPTER  V 

SIR  JOSEPH  was  staring  at  the  new-comer,  and  his 
German  nativity  told  him  what  Marie  Louise  had  not 
been  sure  of,  that  von  Groner  was  no  German.  When 
Verrinder  gave  him  an  English  name  it  shook  Marie  Louise 
with  a  new  dismay.  Sir  Joseph  turned  from  the  man  to 
Marie  Louise  and  demanded: 

"  Marie  Louise,  you  ditt  not  theenk  this  man  is  a  Cherman?" 

This  one  more  shame  crushed  Marie  Louise.  She  dropped 
into  a  chair,  appealing  feebly  to  the  man  she  had  retrieved : 

"Your  name  is  not  von  Groner?" 

Bickford  grinned.  "Well,  in  a  manner  of  speakin'.  You 
might  say  it's  my  pen-name.  Not  that  I've  ever  been  in  the 
pen — except  with  Nicky." 

" Nicky  is  in  the—    He's  not  ill?" 

"Well,  he's  a  bit  sick.  He  was  a  bit  seasick  to  start  with, 
and  when  we  gave  him  the  collar — well,  he  doesn't  like  his 
room."  ' 

"But  his  letters — "  Marie  Louise  pleaded,  her  fears  racing 
ahead  of  her  questions. 

"I  was  always  a  hand  at  forgery,  but  I  thought  best  to 
turn  it  to  the  aid  of  me  country.  I'm  proud  if  you  liked  me 
work.  The  last  ones  were  not  up  to  the  mark.  I  was  hur 
ried,  and  Nicky  was  ugly.  He  refused  to  answer  any  more 
questions.  I  had  to  do  it  all  on  me  own.  Ahfterwards  I 
found  I  had  made  a  few  mistakes." 

When  Marie  Louise  realized  that  this  man  had  been  calmly 
taking  the  letters  addressed  to  Nicky  and  answering  them  in 
his  feigned  script  to  elicit  further  information  from  Sir  Joseph 
and  enmesh  him  further,  she  dropped  her  hands  at  her  sides, 
feeling  not  only  convicted  of  crime,  but  of  imbecility  as  well. 

Sir  Joseph  and  Lady  Webling  spread  their  hands  and  drew 
up  their  shoulders  in  surrender  and  gave  up  hope  of  bluff. 


44  THE    CUP   OF    FURY 

Verrinder  wanted  to  be  merciful  and  avoid  any  more 
climaxes. 

"You  see  it's  all  up,  Sir  Joseph,  don't  you?"  he  said. 

Sir  Joseph  drew  himself  again  as  high  as  he  could,  though 
the  burden  of  his  flesh  kept  pulling  him  down.  He  did  not 
answer. 

"Come  now,  Sir  Joseph,  be  a  sport." 

"The  Englishman's  releechion,"  sneered  Sir  Joseph,  "to  be 
ein  Sportmann." 

"Oh,  I  know  you  cant  understand  it,"  said  Verrinder. 
"It  seems  to  be  untranslatable  into  German — just  as  we  can't 
seem  to  understand  Germanity  except  that  it  is  the  antonym 
of  humanity.  You  fellows  have  no  boyhood  literature,  I  am 
told,  no  Henty  or  Hughes  or  Scott  to  fill  you  with  ideas  of 
fair  play.  You  have  no  games  to  teach  you.  One  really  can't 
blame  you  for  being  such  rotters,  any  more  than  one  can 
blame  a  Kaffir  for  not  understanding  cricket. 

"But  sport  aside,  use  your  intelligence,  old  man.  I've 
laid  my  cards  on  the  table — enough  of  them,  at  least.  We've 
trumped  every  trick,  and  we've  all  the  trumps  outstanding. 
You  have  a  few  high  cards  up  your  sleeve.  Why  not  toss  them 
on  the  table  and  throw  yourselves  on  the  mercy  of  his 
Majesty?" 

The  presence  of  Marie  Louise  drove  the  old  couple  to  a  last 
battle  for  her  faith.  Lady  Webling  stormed,  "All  what  you 
accuse  us  is  lies,  lies!" 

Verrinder  grew  stern: 

"Lies,  you  say?  We  have  you,  and  your  daughter — also 
Nicky.  We  have — well,  I'll  not  annoy  you  with  their  names. 
Over  in  the  States  they  have  a  lot  more  of  you  fellows. 

"You  and  Sir  Joseph  have  lived  in  this  country  for  years 
and  years.  You  have  grown  fat — I  mean  to  say  rich — 
upon  our  bounty.  We  have  loved  and  trusted  you.  His 
Majesty  has  given  you  both  marks  of  his  most  gracious  favor." 

"We  paid  well  for  that,"  sneered  Lady  Webling. 

"Yes,  I  fancy  you  did — but  with  English  pounds  and 
pence  that  you  gained  with  the  help  of  British  wits  and  British 
freedom.  You  have  contributed  to  charities,  yes,  and  hand 
somely,  too,  but  not  entirely  without  the  sweet  usages  of 
advertisement.  You  have  not  hidden  that  part  of  your  book 
keeping  from  the  public. 


THE    CUP   OF    FURY  45 

"But  the  rest  of  your  books — you  don't  show  those.  We 
know  a  ghastly  lot  about  them,  and  it  is  not  pretty,  my  dear 
lady.  I  had  hoped  you  would  not  force  us  to  publish  those 
transactions.  You  have  plotted  the  destruction  of  the  British 
Empire;  you  have  conspired  to  destroy  ships  in  dock  and  at 
sea ;  you  have  sent  God  knows  how  many  lads  to  their  death — 
and  women  and  children,  too.  You  have  helped  to  blow  up 
munitions-plants,  and  on  your  white  heads  is  the  blood  of 
many  and  many  a  poor  wretch  torn  to  pieces  at  his  lathe. 
You  have  made  widows  of  women  and  orphans  of  children 
who  never  heard  of  you,  nor  you  of  them.  Nor  have  you 
cared — or  dared — to  inquire. 

"Sir  Joseph  has  been  perfecting  a  great  scheme  to  buy 
up  what  munitions-plants  he  could  in  this  country  in  order 
to  commit  sabotage  and  slow  up  the  production  of  the  am 
munition  our  troops  are  crying  for.  He  has  plotted  with 
others  to  send  defective  shells  that  will  rip  up  the  guns  they 
do  not  fit,  and  powders  that  will  explode  too  soon  or  not  at 
all.  God!  to  think  that  the  lives  of  our  brave  men  and  the 
life  of  our  Empire  should  be  threatened  by  such  people  as  you ! 

"And  in  the  American  field  Sir  Joseph  has  connived  with  a 
syndicate  to  purchase  factories,  to  stop  production  at  the 
source,  since  your  U-boats  and  your  red-handed  diplomatic 
spies  cannot  stop  it  otherwise.  Your  agents  have  corrupted 
a  few  of  the  Yankees,  and  killed  others,  and  would  have 
killed  more  if  the  name  of  your  people  had  not  become  such  a 
horror  even  in  that  land  where  millions  of  Germans  live  that 
every  proffer  is  suspect. 

"You  see,  we  know  you,  Lady  Webling  and  Sir  Joseph. 
We  have  watched  you  all  the  while  from  the  very  first,  and 
we  know  that  you  are  not  innocent  even  of  complicity  in  the 
supreme  infamy  of  luring  the  Lusitania  to  her  death." 

He  was  quivering  with  the  rush  of  his  emotions  over  the 
broken  dam  of  habitual  reticence. 

Lady  Webling  and  Sir  Joseph  had  quivered,  too,  less  under 
the  impact  of  his  denunciation  than  in  the  confusion  of  their 
own  exposure  to  themselves  and  to  Marie  Louise. 

They  had  watched  her  eyes  as  she  heard  Mr.  Verrinder's 
philippic.  They  had  seen  her  pass  from  incredulity  to  belief. 
They  had  seen  her  glance  at  them  and  glance  away  in  fear 
of  them. 


46  THE    CUP    OF    FURY 

This  broke  them  utterly,  for  she  was  utterly  dear  to  them. 
She  was  dearer  than  their  own  flesh  and  blood.  She  had  re 
placed  their  dead.  She  had  been  born  to  them  without  pain, 
without  infancy,  born  full  grown  in  the  prime  of  youth  and 
beauty.  They  had  watched  her  love  grow  to  a  passion,  and 
their  own  had  grown  with  it. 

What  would  she  do  now?  She  was  the  judge  they  feared 
above  England.  They  awaited  her  sentence. 

Her  eyes  wandered  to  them  and  searched  them  through. 
At  first,  under  the  spell  of  Verrinder's  denunciation,  she  saw 
them  as  two  bloated  fiends,  their  hands  dripping  blood,  their 
lips  framed  to  lies,  their  brains  to  cunning  and  that  synonym 
for  Germanism,  ruthlessness — the  word  the  Germans  chose, 
as  their  Kaiser  chose  Huns  for  an  ideal. 

But  she  looked  again.  She  saw  the  pleading  in  their  eyes. 
Their  very  uncomeliness  besought  her  mercy.  After  all, 
she  had  seen  none  of  the  things  Verrinder  described.  The 
only  real  things  to  her,  the  only  things  she  knew  of  her 
own  knowledge,  were  the  goodnesses  of  these  two.  They 
were  her  parents.  And  now  for  the  first  time  they  needed 
her.  The  mortgage  their  generosity  had  imposed  on  her 
had  fallen  due. 

How  could  she  at  the  first  unsupported  obloquy  of  a  stranger 
turn  against  them?  Her  first  loyalty  was  due  to  them,  and 
no  other  loyalty  was  under  test.  Something  swept  her  to  her 
feet.  She  ran  to  them  and,  as  far  as  she  could,  gathered  them 
into  her  arms.  They  wept  like  two  children  whom  reproaches 
have  hardened  into  defiance,  but  whom  kindness  has  melted. 

Verrinder  watched  the  spectacle  with  some  surprise  and 
not  altogether  with  scorn.  Whatever  else  Miss  Webling  was, 
she  was  a  good  sport.  She  stuck  to  her  team  in  defeat. 

He  said,  not  quite  harshly,  "So,  Miss  Webling,  you  cast 
your  lot  with  them." 

"I  do." 

"Do  you  believe  that  what  I  said  was  true?' 

"No." 

"Really,  you  should  be  careful.  Those  messages  you  car 
ried  incriminate  you." 

"I  suppose  they  do,  though  I  never  knew  what  was  in 
them.  No,  I'll  take  that  back.  I'm  not  trying  to  crawl  out 
of  it." 


THE    CUP    OF    FURY  47 

"Then  since  you  confess  so  much,  I  shall  have  to  ask  you 
to  come  with  them."  \ 

"To  the— the  Tower  of  London?" 

"The  car  is  ready." 

Marie  Louise  was  stabbed  with  fright.  She  seized  the 
doomed  twain  in  a  faster  embrace. 

"What  are  you  going  to  do  with  these  poor  souls?" 

"Their  souls  my  dear  Miss  Webling,  are  outside  our 
jurisdiction." 

"With  their  poor  bodies,  then?" 

"I  am  not  a  judge  or  a  jury,  Miss  Webling.  Everything 
will  be  done  with  propriety.  They  will  not  be  torpedoed  in 
midocean  without  warning.  They  will  have  the  full  advan 
tage  of  the  British  law  to  the  last." 

That  awful  word  jarred  them  all.  But  Sir  Joseph  was  de 
termined  to  make  a  good  end.  He  drew  himself  up  with 
another  effort. 

"Excuse,  pleass,  Mr.  Verrinder — might  it  be  we  should 
take  with  us  a  few  little  things?" 

"Of  course." 

"  Thang  gyou."  He  bowed  and  turned  to  go,  taking  his  wife 
and  Marie  Louise  by  the  arm,  for  mutual  support. 

"If  you  don't  mind,  I'll  come  along,"  said  Mr.  Verrinder. 

Sir  Joseph  nodded.  The  three  went  heavily  up  the  grandiose 
stairway  as  if  a  gibbet  waited  at  the  top.  They  went  into 
Sir  Joseph's  room,  which  adjoined  that  of  his  wife.  Mr. 
Verrinder  paused  on  the  sill  somewhat  shyly: 

"This  is  a  most  unpleasant  task,  but — 

Marie  Louise  hesitated,  smiling  gruesomely. 

"My  room  is  across  the  hall.  You  can  hardly  be  in  both 
places  at  once,  can  you?" 

"I  fancy  I  can  trust  you — especially  as  the  house  is  sur 
rounded.  If  you  don't  mind  joining  us  later." 

Marie  Louise  went  to  her  room.  Her  maid  was  there  in  a 
palsy  of  fear.  The  servants  had  not  dared  apply  themselves 
to  the  keyholes,  but  they  knew  that  the  master  was  visited 
by  the  police  and  that  a  cordon  was  drawn  about  the  house. 

The  aspen  girl  offered  her  help  to  Marie  Louise,  wondering 

if  she  would  compromise  herself  with  the  law,  but  incapable 

of  deserting  so  good  a  mistress  even  at  such  a  crisis.     Marie 

Louise  thanked  her  and  told  her  to  go  to  bed,  compelled  her 

4 


48  THE    CUP    OF    FURY 

to  leave.  Then  she  set  about  the  dreary  task  of  selecting  a 
few  necessaries — a  nightgown,  an  extra  day  gown,  some  linen, 
some  silver,  and  a  few  brushes.  She  felt  as  if  she  were  laying 
out  her  own  grave-clothes,  and  that  she  would  need  little  and 
not  need  that  little  long. 

She  threw  a  good-by  look,  a  long,  sweeping,  caressing  glance, 
about  her  castle,  and  went  across  the  hall,  lugging  her  hand 
bag.  Before  she  entered  Sir  Joseph's  room  she  knocked. 

It  was  Mr.  Verrinder  that  answered,  "Come  in." 

He  was  seated  in  a  chair,  dejected  and  making  himself  as 
inoffensive  as  possible.  Lady  Webling  had  packed  her  own 
bag  and  was  helping  the  helpless  Sir  Joseph  find  the  things 
he  was  looking  for  in  vain,  though  they  were  right  before  him. 
Marie  Louise  saw  evidences  that  a  larger  packing  had  already 
been  done.  Verrinder  had  surprised  them,  about  to  flee. 

Sir  Joseph  was  ready  at  last.  He  was  closing  his  bag  when 
he  took  a  last  glance,  and  said: 

"My  toot'-brush  and  powder." 

He  went  to  his  bathroom  cabinet,  and  there  he  saw  in  the 
little  apothecary-shop  a  bottle  of  tablets  prescribed  for  him 
during  his  illness.  It  was  conspicuously  labeled  "Poison." 

He  stood  staring  at  the  bottle  so  long  in  such  fascination 
that  Lady  Webling  came  to  the  door  to  say: 

"Vat  is  it  you  could  not  find  now,  papa?" 

She  leaned  against  the  edge  of  the  casement,  and  he  pointed 
to  the  bottle.  Their  eyes  met,  and  in  one  long  look  they 
passed  through  a  brief  Gethsemane.  No  words  were  ex 
changed.  She  nodded.  He  took  the  bottle  from  the  shelf 
stealthily,  unscrewed  the  top,  poured  out  a  heap  of  tablets 
and  gave  them  to  her,  then  poured  another  heap  into  his  fat 
palm. 

'Prosit!"  he  said,  and  they  flung  the  venom  into  their 
throats.  It  was  brackish  merely  from  the  coating,  but  they 
could  not  swallow  all  the  pellets.  He  filled  a  glass  of  water 
at  the  faucet  and  handed  it  to  his  wife.  She  quaffed  enough 
to  get  the  pellets  down  her  resisting  throat,  and  handed  the 
glass  to  him. 

They  remained  staring  at  each  other,  trying  to  crowd  into 
their  eyes  an  infinity  of  strange  passionate  messages,  though 
their  features  were  all  awry  with  nausea  and  the  premonition 
of  lethal  pains. 


THE    CUP   OF    FURY  49 

Verrinder  began  to  wonder  at  their  delay.  He  was  about 
to  rise.  Marie  Louise  went  to  the  door  anxiously.  Sir 
Joseph  mumbled: 

"Look  once,  my  darlink.  I  find  some  bong-bongs.  Vould 
you  like,  yes?" 

With  a  childish  canniness  he  held  the  bottle  so  that  she 
could  see  the  skull  and  cross-bones  and  the  word  beneath. 

Marie  Louise,  not  realizing  that  they  had  already  set  out 
on  the  adventure,  gave  a  stifled  cry  and  snatched  at  the  bottle. 
It  fell  to  the  floor  with  a  crash,  and  the  tablets  leaped  here 
and  there  like  tiny  white  beetles.  Some  of  them  ran  out  into 
the  room  and  caught  Verrinder's  eye. 

Before  he  could  reach  the  door  Sir  Joseph  had  said,  trium 
phantly,  to  Marie  Louise: 

"Mamma  and  I  did  eat  already.  Too  bad  you  do  not  come 
vit.  Ade,  Tochterchen.  Lebewohl!" 

He  was  reaching  his  awkward  arms  out  to  clasp  her  when 
Verrinder  burst  into  the  homely  scene  of  their  tragedy.  He 
caught  up  the  broken  bottle  and  saw  the  word  "Poison." 
Beneath  were  the  directions,  but  no  word  of  description,  no 
mention  of  the  antidote. 

"What  is  this  stuff?"  Verrinder  demanded,  in  a  frenzy  of 
dread  and  wrath  and  self-reproach. 

"I  don't  know,"  Marie  Louise  stammered. 

Verrinder  repeated  his  demand  of  Sir  Joseph. 

"Weiss  nit"  he  mumbled,  beginning  to  stagger  as  the 
serpent  struck  its  fangs  into  his  vitals. 

Verrinder  ran  out  into  the  hall  and  shouted  down  the  stairs : 

"Bickford,  telephone  for  a  doctor,  in  God's  name — the 
nearest  one.  Send  out  to  the  nearest  chemist  and  fetch  him 
on  the  run — with  every  antidote  he  has.  Send  somebody 
down  to  the  kitchen  for  warm  water,  mustard,  coffee." 

There  was  a  panic  below,  but  Marie  Louise  knew  nothing 
except  the  swirling  tempest  of  her  own  horror.  Sir  Joseph 
and  Lady  Webling,  blind  with  torment,  wrung  and  wrenched 
with  spasms  of  destruction,  groped  for  each  other's  hands 
and  felt  their  way  through  clouds  of  fire  to  a  resting-place. 

Marie  Louise  could  give  them  no  help,  but  a  little  guidance 
toward  the  bed.  They  fell  upon  it — and  after  a  hideous  while 
they  died. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE  physician  arrived  too  late — physicians  were  hard  to 
get  for  civilians.  While  he  was  being  hunted  down  and 
brought  in,  Verrinder  fought  an  unknown  poison  with  what 
antidotes  he  could  improvise,  and  saw  that  they  merely  added 
annoyance  to  agony. 

His  own  failure  had  been  unnerving.  He  had  pursued  this 
eminent  couple  for  months,  trying  in  vain  to  confirm  suspicion 
by  proof  and  strengthen  assurance  with  evidence,  and  always 
delaying  the  blow  in  the  hope  of  gathering  in  still  more  of 
Germany's  agents.  At  last  he  had  thrown  the  slowly  woven 
net  about  the  Weblings  and  revealed  them  to  themselves  as 
prisoners  of  his  cunning.  Then  their  souls  slipped  out 
through  the  meshes,  leaving  their  useless  empty  bodies  in  his 
care,  their  bodies  and  the  soul  and  body  of  the  young  woman 
who  was  involved  in  their  guilt. 

Verrinder  did  not  relish  the  story  the  papers  would  make  of 
it.  So  he  and  the  physician  devised  a  statement  for  the 
press  to  the  effect  that  the  Weblings  died  of  something 
they  had  eaten.  The  stomach  of  Europe  was  all  deranged, 
and  Sir  Joseph  had  been  famous  for  his  dinners;  there  was  a 
kind  of  ironic  logic  in  his  epitaph. 

Verrinder  left  the  physician  to  fabricate  and  promulgate 
the  story  and  keep  him  out  of  it.  Then  he  addressed  himself 
to  the  remaining  prisoner,  Miss  Marie  Louise  Webling. 

He  had  no  desire  to  display  this  minnow  as  his  captive 
after  the  whales  had  got  away,  but  he  hoped  to  find  her  useful 
in  solving  some  of  the  questions  the  Weblings  had  left  un 
answered  when  they  bolted  into  eternity.  Besides,  he  had 
no  intention  of  letting  Marie  Louise  escape  to  warn  the  other 
conspirators  and  to  continue  her  nefarious  activities. 

His  first  difficulty  was  not  one  of  frightening  Miss  Webling 
into  submission,  but  of  soothing  her  into  coherence.  She 
had  loved  the  old  couple  with  a  filial  passion,  and  the  sight 


THE    CUP   OF    FURY  51 

of  their  last  throes  had  driven  her  into  a  frenzy  of  grief. 
She  needed  the  doctor's  care  before  Verrinder  could  talk  to 
her  at  all.  The  answers  he  elicited  from  her  hysteria  were  full 
of  contradiction,  of  evident  ignorance,  of  inaccuracy,  of  folly. 
But  so  he  had  found  all  human  testimony;  for  these  three 
things  are  impossible  to  mankind :  to  see  the  truth,  to  remem 
ber  it,  and  to  tell  it. 

When  first  Marie  Louise  came  out  of  the  avalanche  of  her 
woes,  it  was  she  who  began  the  questioning.  She  went  up  and 
down  the  room  disheveled,  tear-smirched,  wringing  her  hands 
and  beating  her  breast  till  it  hurt  Verrinder  to  watch  her 
brutality  to  that  tender  flesh. 

"What — what  does  it  mean?"  she  sobbed.  "What  have 
you  done  to  my  poor  papa  and  mamma?  Why  did  you  come 
here?" 

"Surely  you  must  know." 

' '  What  do  I  know  ?     Only  that  they  were  good  sweet  people . ' ' 

"Good  sweet  spies!" 

"Spies!     Those  poor  old  darlings?" 

"Oh,  I  say — really,  now,  you  surely  can't  have  the  face, 
the  insolence,  to — " 

"I  haven't  any  insolence.  I  haven't  anything  but  a  broken 
heart." 

"How  many  hearts  were  broken — how  many  hearts  were 
stopped,  do  you  suppose,  because  of  your  work?" 

"My  what?" 

"I  refer  to  the  lives  that  you  destroyed." 

"I — I  destroyed  lives?     Which  one  of  us  is  going  mad?" 

"Oh,  come,  now,  you  knew  what  you  were  doing.  You 
were  glad  and  proud  for  every  poor  fellow  you  killed." 

"It's  you,  then,  that  are  mad."  She  stared  at  him  in 
utter  fear.  She  made  a  dash  for  the  door.  He  prevented 
her.  She  fell  back  and  looked  to  the  window.  He  took 
her  by  the  arm  and  twisted  her  into  a  chair.  He  had  seen 
hysteria  quelled  by  severity.  He  stood  over  her  and  spoke 
with  all  the  sternness  of  his  stern  soul. 

"You  will  gain  nothing  by  trying  to  make  a  fool  of  me. 
You  carried  messages  for  those  people.  The  last  messages 
you  took  you  delivered  to  one  of  our  agents." 

Her  soul  refused  her  even  self-defense.  She  could  only 
stammer  the  fact,  hardly  believing  it  as  she  put  it  forth: 


52  THE    CUP   OF    FURY 

"I  didn't  know  what  was  in  the  letters.     I  never  knew." 

Verrinder  was  disgusted  by  such  puerile  defense: 

"What  did  you  think  was  in  them,  then?" 

"I  had  no  idea.  Papa — Sir  Joseph  didn't  take  me  into 
his  confidence." 

"But  you  knew  that  they  were  secret." 

"He  told  me  that  they  were-^-that  they  were  business 
messages — secret  financial  transactions." 

"Transactions  in  British  lives — oh,  they  were  that!  And 
you  knew  it." 

' '  I  did  not  know  it !     I  did  not  know  it !     I  did  not  know  it !" 

She  realized  too  late  that  the  strength  of  the  retort  suf 
fered  by  its  repetition.  It  became  nonsense  on  the  third 
iterance.  She  grew  afraid  even  to  defend  herself. 

Seeing  how  frightened  she  was  at  bay,  Mr.  Verrinder  fore- 
bore  to  drive  her  to  distraction. 

"Very  well,  you  did  not  know  what  the  messages  contained. 
But  why  did  you  consent  to  such  sneaking  methods?  Why 
did  you  let  them  use  you  for  such  evident  deceit?" 

"I  was  glad  to  be  of  use  to  them.  They  had  been  so 
good  to  me  for  so  long.  I  was  used  to  doing  as  I  was  told. 
I  suppose  it  was  gratitude." 

It  was  then  that  Mr.  Verrinder  delivered  himself  of  his 
bitter  opinion  of  gratitude,  which  has  usually  been  so  well 
spoken  of  and  so  rarely  berated  for  excess. 

"Gratitude  is  one  of  the  evils  of  the  world.  I  fancy  that 
few  other  emotions  have  done  more  harm.  In  moderation  it 
has  its  uses,  but  in  excess  it  becomes  vicious.  It  is  a  form 
of  voluntary  servitude;  it  absolutely  destroys  all  respect  for 
public  law;  it  is  the  foundation  of  tyrannies;  it  is  the  secret 
of  political  corruption;  it  is  the  thing  that  holds  dynasties 
together,  family  despotism;  it  is  soul-mortgage,  bribery.  It 
is  a  monster  of  what  the  Americans  call  graft.  It  is  chloro 
form  to  the  conscience,  to  patriotism,  to  every  sense  of  public 
duty.  'Scratch  my  back,  and  I  am  your  slave' — that's 
gratitude." 

Mr.  Verrinder  rarely  spoke  at  such  length  or  with  such 
apothegm. 

Marie  Louise  was  a  little  more  dazed  than  ever  to  hear 
gratitude  denounced.  She  was  losing  all  her  bearings.  Next 
he  demanded: 


THE    CUP   OF    FURY  53 

"But  admitting  that  you  were  duped  by  your  gratitude, 
how  did  it  happen  that  your  curiosity  never  led  you  to  inquire 
into  the  nature  of  those  messages?" 

"I  respected  Sir  Joseph  beyond  all  people.  I  supposed 
that  what  he  did  was  right.  I  never  knew  it  not  to  be. 
And  then — well,  if  I  did  wonder  a  little  once  in  a  while,  I 
thought  I'd  better  mind  my  own  business." 

Verrinder  had  his  opinion  of  this,  too.  "Minding  your 
own  business!  That's  another  of  those  poisonous  virtues. 
Minding  your  own  business  leads  to  pacifism,  malevolent 
neutrality,  selfishness  of  every  sort.  It's  death  to  charity 
and  public  spirit.  Suppose  the  Good  Samaritan  had  minded 
his  own  business !  But —  Well,  this  is  getting  us  no  forwarder 
with  you.  You  carried  those  messages,  and  never  felt  even 
a  woman's  curiosity  about  them!  You  met  Nicky  Easton 
often,  and  never  noted  his  German  accent,  never  suspected 
that  he  was  not  the  Englishman  he  pretended  to  be.  Is  that 
true?" 

He  saw  by  the  wild  look  in  her  eyes  and  their  escape  from 
his  own  that  he  had  scored  a  hit.  He  did  not  insist  upon 
her  acknowledging  it. 

'And  your  only  motive  was  gratitude?" 
'Yes,  sir." 

'You  never  asked  any  pay  for  it?" 

'No,  sir." 

'You  never  received  anything  for  it?" 

'No,  sir." 

'We  find  the  record  of  a  transfer  to  you  of  securities  for 
some  twenty  thousand  pounds.  Why  was  that  given  you?" 

"It — it  was  just  out  of  generosity.  Sir  Joseph  said  he  was 
afraid  I  might  be — that  his  will  might  be  broken,  and — " 

"Ah!  you  discussed  his  will  with  him,  then?" 

She  was  horrified  at  his  implication.  She  cried,  "Oh,  I 
begged  him  not  to,  but  he  insisted." 

"He  said  there  were  other  heirs  and  they  might  contest  his 
will.  Did  he  mention  the  heirs?" 

"No,  sir.  I  don't  think  so.  I  don't  remember  that  he 
did." 

"He  did  not  by  any  chance  refer  to  the  other  grandparents 
of  the  two  children?  Mf.  and  Mrs.  Oakby,  the  father  and 
mother  of  the  father  of  Victor  and  Bettina?" 


54  THE    CUP    OF    FURY 

"He  didn't  refer  to  them,  I'm  sure.     Yes,  I  am  quite  sure." 

"Did  he  say  that  his  money  would  be  left  in  trust  for  his 
grandchildren?" 

"No." 

"And  he  gave  you  twenty  thousand  pounds  just  out  of 
generosity?" 

"Yes.     Yes,  Mr.  Verrinder." 

"It  was  a  fairish  amount  of  money  for  messenger  fees, 
wasn't  it?  And  it  came  to  you  while  you  were  carrying  those 
letters  to  Nicky?" 

"No!  Sir  Joseph  had  been  ill.  He  had  had  a  stroke  of 
paralysis." 

"And  you  were  afraid  he  might  have  another?" 

"No!" 

"You  were  not  afraid  of  that?" 

"Yes,  of  course  I  was,  but —  What  are  you  trying  to 
make  me  say — that  I  went  to  him  and  demanded  the  money?" 

"That  idea  occurs  to  you,  does  it?" 

She  writhed  with  disgust  at  the  suggestion.  Yet  it  had  a 
clammy  plausibility.  Mr.  Verrinder  went  on: 

"These  messages,  you  say,  concerned  a  financial  trans 
action?" 

"So  papa  told  me." 

"And  you  believed  him?" 

"Naturally." 

"You  never  doubted  him?" 

All  the  tortures  of  doubt  that  had  assailed  her  recurred 
to  her  now  and  paralyzed  her  power  to  utter  the  ringing 
denial  that  was  needed.  He  went  on: 

"Didn't  it  strike  you  as  odd  that  Sir  Joseph  should  be 
willing  to  pay  you  twenty  thousand  pounds  just  to  carry 
messages  concerning  some  mythical  business?" 

She  did  not  answer.  She  was  afraid  to  commit  herself  to 
anything.  Every  answer  was  a  trap.  Verrinder  went  on: 
"Twenty  thousand  pounds  is  a  ten-per-centum  commission 
on  two  hundred  thousand  pounds.  That  was  rather  a 
largish  transaction  to  be  carried  on  through  secret  letters, 
eh?  Nicky  Easton  was  not  a  millionaire,  was  he?  Now 
I  ask  you,  should  you  think  of  him  as  a  Rothschild?  Or 
was  he,  do  you  think,  acting  as  agent  for  some  one  else,  per 
haps,  and  if  so,  for  whom?" 


THE    CUP   OF    FURY  S5 

She  answered  none  of  these.  They  were  based  on  the 
assumption  that  she  had  put  forward  herself.  She  could 
find  nothing  to  excuse  her.  Verrinder  was  simply  playing 
tag  with  her.  As  soon  as  he  touched  her  he  ran  away  and 
came  at  her  from  another  direction. 

"Of  course,  we  know  that  you  were  only  the  adopted 
daughter  of  Sir  Joseph.  But  where  did  you  first  meet  him?" 

"In  Berlin." 

The  sound  of  that  word  startled  her.  That  German  name 
stood  for  all  the  evils  of  the  time.  It  was  the  inaccessible 
throne  of  hell. 

Verrinder  was  startled  by  it,  too. 

"In  Berlin!"  he  exclaimed,  and  nodded  his  head.  "Now 
we  are  getting  somewhere.  Would  you  mind  telling  me  the 
circumstances  ? ' ' 

She  blushed  a  furious  scarlet. 

"I— I'd  rather  not." 

"I  must  insist." 

"Please  send  me  to  the  Tower  and  have  me  imprisoned  for 
life.  I'd  rather  be  there  than  here.  Or  better  yet — have 
me  shot.  It  would  make  me  happier  than  anything  you  could 
do." 

"I'm  afraid  that  your  happiness  is  not  the  main  object 
of  the  moment.  Will  you  be  so  good  as  to  tell  me  how  you 
met  Sir  Joseph  in — in  Berlin." 

Marie  Louise  drew  a  deep  breath.  The  past  that  she  had 
tried  to  smother  under  a  new  life  must  be  confessed  at  such 
a  time  of  all  times! 

"Well,  you  know  that  Sir  Joseph  had  a  daughter;  the 
two  children  up-stairs  are  hers,  and — and  what's  to  become 
of  them,  in  Heaven's  name?" 

"One  problem  at  a  time,  if  you  don't  mind.  Sir  Joseph 
had  a  daughter.  That  would  be  Mrs.  Oakby." 

"Yes.  Her  husband  died  before  her  second  baby  was 
born,  and  she  died  soon  after.  And  Sir  Joseph  and  Lady 
Webling  mourned  for  her  bitterly,  and — well,  a  year  or 
so  later  they  were  traveling  on  the  Continent — in  Germany, 
they  were,  and  one  night  they  went  to  the  Winter  Garten 
in  Berlin — the  big  music-hall,  you  know.  Well,  they  were 
sitting  far  back,  and  an  American  team  of  musicians  came  on — 
the  Musical  Mokes,  we  were  called." 


56  THE   CUP   OF   FURY 

"We?" 

She  bent  her  head  in  shame.  "I  was  one  of  them.  I 
played  a  xylophone  and  a  saxophone  and  an  accordion — all 
sorts  of  things.  Well,  Lady  Webling  gave  a  little  gasp 
when  she  saw  me,  and  she  looked  at  Sir  Joseph — so  she  told 
me  afterward — and  then  they  got  up  and  stole  'way  up  front 
just  as  I  left  the  stage — to  make  a  quick  change,  you  know. 
I  came  back — in  tights,  playing  a  big  trombone,  prancing 
round  and  making  an  awful  noise.  Lady  Webling  gave  a 
little  scream;  nobody  heard  her  because  I  made  a  loud  blat 
on  the  trombone  in  the  ear  of  the  black-face  clown,  and  he 
gave  a  shriek  and  did  a  funny  fall,  and — " 

"But,  pardon  me — why  did  Lady  Webling  scream?" 

"Because  I  looked  like  her  dead  daughter.  It  was  so 
horrible  to  see  her  child  come  out  of  the  grave  in — in  tights, 
blatting  a  trombone  at  a  clown  in  that  big  variety  theater." 

"I  can  quite  understand.     And  then — " 

"Well,  Sir  Joseph  came  round  to  the  stage  door  and  sent 
in  his  card.  The  man  who  brought  it  grinned  and  told 
everybody  an  old  man  was  smitten  on  me;  and  Ben,  the  black 
face  man,  said,  'I'll  break  his  face,'  but  I  said  I  wouldn't 
see  him. 

"Well,  when  I  was  dressed  and  leaving  the  theater  with 
the  black-face  man,  you  know,  Sir  Joseph  was  outside.  He 
stopped  me  and  said:  'My  child!  My  child!'  and  the  tears 
ran  down  his  face.  I  stopped,  of  course,  and  said,  'What's 
the  matter  now?'  And  he  said,  'Would  you  come  with 
me?'  and  I  said,  'Not  in  a  thousand  years,  old  Creepo  Christ 
mas!'  And  he  said:  'My  poor  wife  is  in  the  carriage  at  the 
curb.  She  wants  to  speak  to  you.'  And  then  of  course 
I  had  to  go,  and  she  reached  out  and  dragged  me  in  and  wept 
all  over  me.  I  thought  they  were  both  crazy,  but  finally 
they  explained,  and  they  asked  me  to  go  to  their  hotel  with 
them.  So  I  told  Ben  to  be  on  his  way,  and  I  went. 

"Well,  they  asked  me  a  lot  of  questions,  and  I  told  them 
a  little — not  everything,  but  enough,  Heaven  knows.  And 
they  begged  me  to  be  their  daughter.  I  thought  it  would 
be  pretty  stupid,  but  they  said  they  couldn't  stand  the 
thought  of  their  child's  image  going  about  as  I  was,  and 
I  wasn't  so  stuck  on  the  job  myself — odd,  how  the  old  lan 
guage  comes  back,  isn't  it?  I  haven't  heard  any  of  it  for 


THE    CUP   OF    FURY  57 

so  long  I'd  almost  forgotten  it."  She  passed  her  hand 
kerchief  across  her  lips  as  if  to  rub  away  a  bad  taste.  It 
left  the  taste  of  tears.  She  sighed:  "Well,  they  adopted 
me,  and  I  learned  to  love  them.  And — and  that's  all." 

"And  you  learned  to  love  their  native  country,  too,  I 
fancy." 

"At  first  I  did  like  Germany  pretty  well.  They  were  crazy 
about  us  in  Berlin.  I  got  my  first  big  money  and  notices 
and  attention  there.  You  can  imagine  it  went  to  my  head. 
But  then  I  came  to  England  and  tried  to  be  as  English  as  I 
could,  so  as  not  to  be  conspicuous.  I  never  wanted  to  be 
conspicuous  off  the  stage — or  on  it,  for  that  matter.  I  even 
took  lessons  from  the  man  who  had  the  sign  up,  you  remember, 
'Americans  taught  to  speak  English!'  I  always  had  a  gift 
for  foreign  languages,  and  I  got  to  thinking  in  English,  too." 

"One  moment,  please.  Did  you  say  'Americans  taught?' 
Americans?" 

"Yes." 

"You're  not  American?" 

"Why,  of  course!" 

"Damned  stupid  of  me!" 

Verrinder  frowned.  This  complicated  matters.  He  had 
cornered  her,  only  to  have  her  abscond  into  neutral  territory. 
He  had  known  that  Marie  Louise  was  an  adopted  child,  but 
had  not  suspected  her  Americanism.  This  required  a  bit  of 
thinking.  While  he  studied  it  in  the  back  room  of  his  brain 
his  forehead  self  was  saying: 

"So  Sir  Joseph  befriended  you,  and  that  was  what  won  your 
amazing,  unquestioning  gratitude?" 

' '  That  and  a  thousand  thousand  little  kindnesses.  I  loved 
them  like  mother  and  father." 

"But  your  own — er — mother  and  father — you  must  have 
had  parents  of  your  own — what  was  their  nationality?" 

"Oh,  they  were,  as  we  say,  'Americans  from  'way  back.' 
But  my  father  left  my  mother  soon  after  I  was  born.  We 
weren't  much  good,  I  guess.  It  was  when  I  was  a  baby.  He 
was  very  restless,  they  say.  I  suppose  I  got  my  runaway 
nature  from  him.  But  I've  outgrown  that.  Anyway,  he  left 
my  mother  with  three  children.  My  little  brother  died.  My 
mother  was  a  seamstress  in  a  little  town  out  West — an  awful 
hole  it  was.  I  was  a  tiny  little  girl  when  they  took  me  to 


58  THECUPOFFURY 

my  mother's  funeral.  I  remember  that,  but  I  can't  remember 
her.  That  was  my  first  death.  And  now  this!  I've  lost  a 
mother  and  father  twice.  That  hasn't  happened  to  many 
people.  So  you  must  forgive  me  for  being  so  crazy.  So 
many  of  my  loved  are  dead.  It's  frightful.  We  lose  so 
many  as  we  grow  up.  Life  is  like  walking  through  a  graveyard, 
with  the  sextons  always  busy  opening  new  places.  There 
was  so  much  crying  and  loneliness  before,  and  now  this  war 
goes  on  and  on — as  if  we  needed  a  war!" 

"God  knows,  we  don't." 

Marie  Louise  went  to  the  window  and  raised  the  curtain. 
A  haggard  gray  light  had  been  piping  the  edges  of  the 
shade.  Now  the  full  casement  let  in  a  flood  of  warm 
morning  radiance. 

The  dull  street  was  alive  again.  Sparrows  were  hopping. 
Wagons  were  on  the  move.  Small  and  early  tradesfolk  were 
about  their  business.  Servants  were  opening  houses  as  shops 
were  being  opened  in  town. 

The  big  wheel  had  rolled  London  round  into  the  eternal 
day.  Doors  and  windows  were  being  flung  ajar.  News 
papers  and  milk  were  taken  in,  ashes  put  out,  cats  and  dogs 
released,  front  stoops  washed,  walks  swept,  gardens  watered. 
Brooms  were  pendulating.  In  the  masters'  rooms  it  was  still 
night  and  slumber-time,  but  humble  people  were  alert. 

The  morning  after  a  death  is  a  fearful  thing.  Those 
papers  on  the  steps  across  the  way  were  doubtless  loaded  with 
more  tragedies  from  the  front,  and  among  the  cruel  facts 
was  the  lie  that  concealed  the  truth  about  the  Weblings, 
who  were  to  read  no  more  morning  papers,  eat  no  more 
breakfasts,  set  out  on  no  more  journeys. 

Grief  came  to  Marie  Louise  now  with  a  less  brackish  taste. 
Her  sorrow  had  the  pity  of  the  sunlight  on  it.  She  wept  not 
now  for  the  terror  and  hatefulness  of  the  Weblings'  fate, 
but  for  the  beautiful  things  that  would  bless  them  no  more, 
for  the  roses  that  would  glow  unseen,  the  flowers  that  would 
climb  old  walls  and  lean  out  unheeded,  asking  to  be  admired 
and  proffering  fragrance  in  payment  of  praise.  The  Weblings 
were  henceforth  immune  to  the  pleasant  rumble  of  wagons 
in  streets,  to  the  cheery  good  mornings  of  passers-by,  the 
savor  of  coffee  in  the  air,  the  luscious  colors  of  fruits  piled 
upon  silver  dishes. 


THE    CUP   OF    FURY  59 

Then  she  heard  a  scamper  of  bare  feet,  the  squeals  of  mis 
chief-making  children  escaping  from  a  pursuing  nurse. 

It  had  been  a  favorite  pastime  of  Victor  and  Bettina  to 
break  in  upon  Marie  Louise  of  mornings  when  she  forgot  to 
lock  her  door.  They  loved  to  steal  in  barefoot  and  pounce 
on  her  with  yelps  of  savage  delight  and  massacre  her,  pull 
her  hair  and  dance  upon  her  bed  and  on  her  as  she  pleaded 
for  mercy. 

She  heard  them  coming  now,  and  she  could  not  reach  the 
door  before  it  opened  and  disclosed  the  grinning,  tousle-curled 
cherubs  in  their  sleeping-suits. 

They  darted  in,  only  to  fall  back  in  amazement.  Marie 
Louise  was  not  in  bed.  The  bed  had  not  been  slept  in. 
Marie  Louise  was  all  dressed,  and  she  had  been  crying. 
And  in  a  chair  sat  a  strange,  formidable  old  gentleman  who 
looked  tired  and  forlorn. 

"Auntie!"  they  gasped. 

She  dropped  to  her  knees,  and  they  ran  to  her  for  refuge  from 
the  strange  man. 

She  hugged  them  so  hard  that  they  cried,  "Don't!" 

Without  in  the  least  understanding  what  it  was  all  about, 
they  heard  her  saying  to  the  man: 

"And  now  what's  to  become  of  these  poor  lambs?" 

The  old  stranger  passed  a  slow  gray  hand  across  his  dismal 
face  and  pondered. 

The  children  pointed,  then  remembered  that  it  is  impolite 
to  point,  and  drew  back  their  little  index  hands  and  whispered: 

"Auntie,  what  you  up  so  early  for?"  and,  "Who  is  that?" 

And  she  whispered,  '"S-h-h!" 

Being  denied  the  answer  to  this  charade,  they  took  up  a 
new  interest. 

"I  wonder  is  grandpapa  up,  too,  and  all  dressed,"  said 
Victor. 

"And  maybe  grandmamma,"  Bettina  shrilled. 

"I'll  beat  you  to  their  room,"  said  Victor. 

Marie  Louise  seized  them  by  their  hinder  garments  as  they 
fled. 

"You  must  not  bother  them." 

"Why  not?"  said  Victor. 

"Will  so!"  said  Bettina,  pawing  to  be  free. 

Marie  Louise  implored:    "Please,  please!     They've  gone." 


60  THE    CUP   OF    FURY 

"Where?" 

She  cast  her  eyes  up  at  that  terrible  query,  and  answered 
it  vaguely. 

"Away." 

"They  might  have  told  a  fellow  good-by,"  Victor  brooded. 

"They — they  forgot,  perhaps." 

"  I  don't  think  that  was  very  nice  of  them,"  Bettina  pouted. 

Victor  was  more  cheerful.  "Perhaps  they  did;  perhaps 
they  kissed  us  while  we  was  asleep — were  asleep." 

Bettina  accepted  with  delight. 

"Seems  to  me  I  'member  somebody  kissin'  me.  Yes,  I 
'member  now." 

Victor  was  skeptical.  "  Maybe  you  only  had  -a  dream  about 
it." 

"What  else  is  there?"  said  Mr.  Verrinder,  rising  and  patting 
Victor  on  the  shoulder.  "You'd  better  run  along  to  your 
tubs  now." 

They  recognized  the  authority  in  his  voice  and  obeyed. 

The  children  took  their  beauty  with  them,  but  left  their 
destiny  to  be  arranged  by  higher  powers,  the  gods  of  Eld. 

"What  is  to  become  of  them,"  Louise  groaned  again,  "when 
I  go  to  prison?" 

Verrinder  was  calm.  "Sir  Joseph's  will  doubtless  left  the 
bulk  of  his  fortune  to  them.  That  will  provide  for  their 
finances.  And  they  have  two  grandparents  left.  The  Oakbys 
will  surely  be  glad  to  take  the  children  in,  especially  as  they 
will  come  with  such  fortunes." 

"You  mean  that  I  am  to  have  no  more  to  do  with  them?" 

"I  think  it  would  be  best  to  remove  them  to  a  more  strictly 
English  influence." 

This  hurt  her  horribly.  She  grew  impatient  for  the  finishing 
blow. 

"And  now  that  they  are  disposed  of,  have  you  decided 
what's  to  become  of  me?" 

"It  is  not  for  me  to  decide.  By  the  by,  have  you  any  one 
to  represent  you  or  intercede  for  you  here,  or  act  as  your 
counsel  in  England?" 

She  shook  her  head.  "A  good  many  people  have  been 
very  nice  to  me,  of  course.  I've  noticed,  though,  that  even 
they  grew  cold  and  distant  of  late.  I'd  rather  die  than  ask 
any  of  them." 


THE    CUP   OF    FURY  61 

"But  have  you  no  relatives  living — no  one  of  importance 
in  the  States  who  could  vouch  for  you?" 

She  shook  her  head  with  a  doleful  humility. 

"None  of  our  family  were  ever  important  that  I  ever  heard 
of,  though  of  course  one  never  knows  what  relatives  are 
lurking  about.  Mine  will  never  claim  me;  that's  certain. 
I  did  have  a  sister — poor  thing! — if  she's  alive.  We  didn't 
get  along  very  well.  I  was  too  wild  and  restless  as  a  girl. 
She  was  very  good,  hard-working,  simple,  homely  as  sin — or 
homely  as  virtue.  I  was  all  for  adventure.  I've  had  my  fill  of 
it.  But  once  you  begin  it,  you  can't  stop  when  you've  had 
enough.  If  she's  not  dead,  she's  probably  married  and  living 
under  another  name — Heaven  knows  what  name  or  where. 
But  I  could  find  her,  perhaps.  I'd  love  to  go  to  her.  She 
was  a  very  good  girl.  She's  probably  married  a  good  man 
and  has  brought  up  her  children  piously,  and  never  mentioned 
me.  I'd  only  bring  disgrace  on  her.  She'd  disown  me  if  I 
came  home  with  this  cloud  of  scandal  about  me." 

"No  one  shall  know  of  this  scandal  unless  you  tell." 

She  laughed  harshly,  with  a  patronizing  superiority. 

"Really,  Mr.  Verrinder,  did  you  ever  know  a  secret  to  be 
kept?" 

"This  one  will  be." 

She  laughed  again  at  him,  then  at  herself. 

He  rose  wearily.  "  I  think  I  shall  have  to  be  getting  along. 
I  haven't  had  a  bath  or  a  shave  to-day.  I  shall  ask  you  to  keep 
to  your  room  and  deny  yourself  to  all  visitors.  I  won't  ask 
you  to  promise  not  to  escape.  If  the  guard  around  the  house 
is  not  capable  of  detaining  you,  you're  welcome  to  your 
freedom,  though  I  warn  you  that  England  is  as  hard  to  get 
out  of  as  to  get  into  nowadays.  Whatever  you  do,  for  your 
own  sake,  at  least,  keep  this  whole  matter  secret  and  stick  to 
the  story  we  agreed  on.  Good  morning!" 

He  bowed  himself  out.  No  rattling  of  chains  marked  his 
closing  of  the  door,  but  if  he  had  been  a  turnkey  in  Newgate 
he  could  not  have  left  Marie  Louise  feeling  more  a  prisoner. 
Her  room  was  her  body's  jail,  but  her  soul  was  in  a  dungeon, 
too. 

As  Verrinder  went  down  the  hall  he  scattered  a  covey  of 
whispering  servants. 

The  nurse  who  had  waited  to  seize  the  children  when  they 


62  THE    CUP   OF    FURY 

came  forth  had  left  them  to  dress  themselves  while  she  hastened 
to  publish  in  the  servants'  dining-room  the  appalling  fact 
that  she  had  caught  sight  of  a  man  in  Miss  Marie  Louise's 
room.  The  other  servants  had  many  other  even  more 
astounding  things  to  tell — to  wit:  that  after  mysterious 
excitements  about  the  house,  with  strange  men  going  and 
coming,  and  the  kitchen  torn  to  pieces  for  mustard  and  warm 
milk  and  warm  water  and  strong  coffee,  and  other  things, 
Sir  Joseph  and  Lady  Webling  were  no  more,  and  the  whole 
household  staff  was  out  of  a  job.  Strange  police-like  persons 
were  in  the  house,  going  through  all  the  papers  in  Sir  Joseph's 
room.  The  servants  could  hardly  wait  to  get  out  with  the 
gossip. 

And  Mr.  Verrinder  had  said  that  this  secret  would  be  kept ! 


CHAPTER  VII 

SOMEWHERE  along  about  this  time,  though  there  is  no 
record  of  the  exact  date — and  it  was  in  a  shabby  home 
in  a  humble  town  where  dates  made  little  difference — a  homely 
woman  sniffed. 

Her  name  was  Mrs.  Nuddle. 

What  Mrs.  Nuddle  was  sniffing  at  was  a  page  of  fashion 
cartoons,  curious  human  hieroglyphs  that  women  can  read  and 
run  to  buy.  Highly  improbable  garments  were  sketched  on 
utterly  impossible  figures — female  eels  who  could  crawl 
through  their  own  garters,  eels  of  strange  mottlings,  with 
heads  like  cranberries,  feet  like  thorns,  and  no  spines  at  all. 

Mrs.  Nuddle  was  as  opposite  in  every  way  as  could  be. 
She  could  not  have  crawled  through  her  own  washtub  if  she 
had  knocked  the  bottom  out  of  it.  She  was  a  caricature  made 
by  nature  and  long,  hard  work,  and  she  laughed  at  the  carica 
tures  devised  by  art  in  a  hurry. 

She  was  about  to  cast  the  paper  aside  as  a  final  rebuke 
when  she  caught  sight  of  portraits  of  real  people  of  fashion. 
They  did  not  look  nearly  so  fashionable  as  the  cartoons,  but 
they  were  at  least  possible.  Some  of  them  were  said  to  be 
prominent  in  charity;  most  of  them  were  prominent  out  of 
their  corsages. 

Now  Mrs.  Nuddle  sniffed  at  character,  not  at  caricature. 
Leaning  against  her  washtub  and  wringer,  both  as  graceful 
as  their  engineer,  she  indulged  herself  in  the  pitiful  but  un 
failing  solace  of  the  poor  and  the  ugly,  which  is  to  attribute 
to  the  rich  dishonesty  and  to  the  beautiful  wickedness. 

The  surf  Mrs.  Nuddle  had  raised  in  the  little  private  sea 
of  her  tub  had  died  down,  and  a  froth  of  soap  dried  on  the 
rawhide  of  her  big  forearms  as  her  heifer  eyes  roamed  the 
newspaper-gallery  of  portraits.  One  sudsy  hand  supported 
and  suppressed  her  smile  of  ridicule.  These  women,  belles 
and  swells,  were  all  as  glossy  as  if  they  had  been  ironed. 
5 


64  THE   CUP   OF    FURY 

Mrs.  Muddle  sneered:  "If  the  hussies  would  do  an  honest 
day's  work  it  would  be  better  for  their  riggers."  She  was 
mercifully  oblivious  of  the  fact  that  her  tub-callisthenics  had 
made  her  no  more  exquisite  than  a  cow  in  a  kimono. 

Mrs.  Nuddle  scorned  the  lily-fingered  tulip-fleshed  beauties. 
Their  sentimental  alarms  had  nothing  in  common  with  her 
problem,  which  was  the  riddle  of  a  husband  who  was  faithful 
only  to  the  bottle,  who  was  indifferent  to  the  children  he  got 
so  easily,  and  was  poetical  only  in  that  he  never  worked  save 
when  the  mood  was  on  him. 

Again  Mrs.  Nuddle  made  to  cast  aside  the  paper  that  had 
come  into  her  home  wrapped  round  a  bundle  of  laundry. 
But  now  she  was  startled,  and  she  would  have  startled  anybody 
who  might  have  been  watching  her,  for  she  stared  hard  at  a 
photographed  beauty  and  gasped: 

"Sister!" 

She  in  her  disordered  garb,  unkempt,  uncorseted,  and 
uncommonly  common,  greeted  with  the  word  "Sister!"  the 
photograph  of  a  very  young,  very  beautiful,  very  gracile 
creature,  in  a  mannish  costume  that  emphasized  her  femininity, 
in  a  foreign  garden,  in  a  braw  hat  with  curls  cascading  from 
under  it,  with  a  throat  lilying  out  of  a  flaring  collar,  with 
hands  pocketed  in  a  smart  jacket,  and  below  that  a  pair  of 
most  fashionable  legs  in  riding-breeches  and  puttees!  She 
carried  not  a  parasol  nor  a  riding-crop,  but  a  great  reaping- 
hook  swung  across  her  shoulder,  and  she  smiled  as  impudently, 
as  immortally,  as  if  she  were  Youth  and  had  slain  old  Time 
and  carried  off  his  scythe. 

The  picture  did  not  reply  to  Mrs.  Nuddle's  cry,  but  Mrs. 
Muddle's  eldest  daughter,  a  precocious  little  adventuress  of 
eleven  or  so,  who  was  generally  called  "Sister,"  turned  from 
the  young  brother  whose  smutty  face  she  was  just  smacking 
and  snapped: 

"Aw,  whatcha  want?" 

Little  Sister  supposed  that  her  irritating  mother  was  going 
to  tell  her  to  stop  doing  something,  or  to  start  doing  some 
thing — either  of  which  behests  she  always  hated  and  only 
obeyed  because  her  mother  was  bigger  than  she  was.  She 
turned  and  saw  her  mother  swaying  and  clutching  at  the  air. 
Sister  had  a  gorgeous  hope  that  mother  would  fall  into  the 
tub  and  be  interesting  for  once.  But  mother  was  a  born 


THECUPOFFURY  65 

disappointer.  She  shook  off  the  promising  swoon,  righted 
herself,  and  began  fiercely  to  scan  the  paper  to  find  out  whose 
name  the  picture  bore.  The  caption  was  torn  off. 

Being  absolutely  sure  who  it  was,  she  wanted  to  find  out 
who  it  really  was. 

In  her  frantic  curiosity  she  remembered  that  her  husband 
had  stripped  off  a  corner  of  the  paper,  dipped  it  in  the  stove, 
lighted  his  pipe  with  it,  thrown  it  flaming  on  the  floor,  spat  it 
out  with  practised  accuracy,  and  trodden  it  as  he  went  away. 
Mrs.  Nuddle  ran  to  pick  it  up. 

On  the  charred  remnant  she  read: 

The  Beautiful  Miss 

One  of  London's  reigning  beaut 

daughter  of  Sir  Joseph  W 

doing  farm  work  on  the  estate  in 

Mrs.  Nuddle  sniffed  no  more.  She  flopped  to  a  backless 
chair  and  squatted  in  a  curious  burlesque  of  Rodin's  statue  of 
"The  Thinker."  One  heavy  hand  pinched  her  dewlap.  Her  hair 
was  damp  with  steam  and  raining  about  her  face.  Her  old  waist 
was  half  buttoned,  and  no  one  would  have  regretted  if  it  had 
been  all  buttoned.  She  was  as  plebeian  as  an  ash-can  and  as 
full  of  old  embers. 

*  She  was  still  immobilized  when  her  husband  came  in.  Now 
he  gasped.  His  wife  was  loafing !  sitting  down !  in  the  middle 
of  the  day !  Thinking  was  loafing  with  her.  He  was  supposed 
to  do  the  family  thinking.  It  was  doubly  necessary  that  she 
should  work  now,  because  he  was  on  a  strike.  He  had  been  to 
a  meeting  of  other  thinkers — ground  and  lofty  thinkers  who 
believed  that  they  had  discovered  the  true  evil  of  the  world 
and  its  remedy. 

The  evil  was  the  possession  of  money  by  those  who  had 
accumulated  it.  The  remedy  was  to  take  it  away  from  them. 
Then  the  poor  would  be  rich,  which  was  right,  and  the  rich 
would  be  poor,  which  was  lighter  still. 

It  was  well  known  that  the  only  way  to  end  the  bad  habit  of 
work  was  to  quit  working.  And  the  way  to  insure  universal 
prosperity  was  to  burn  down  the  factories  and  warehouses, 
destroy  all  machinery  and  beggar  the  beasts  who  invented, 
invested,  built,  and  hired  and  tried  to  get  rich  by  getting  riches. 


66  THE    CUP   OF    FURY 

This  program  would  take  some  little  time  to  perfect,  and 
meanwhile  Jake  was  willing  that  his  wife  should  work.  Indeed, 
a  sharp  fear  almost  unmanned  him — what  if  she  should  fall 
sick  and  have  to  loaf  in  the  horsepital  ?  What  if  she  should  die  ? 
O  Gord!  Her  little  children  would  be  left  motherless — and 
fatherless,  for  he  would,  of  course,  be  too  busy  saving  the  world 
to  save  his  children.  He  would  lose,  too,  the  prestige  enjoyed 
only  by  those  who  have  their  money  in  their  wife's  name.  So 
he  spoke  to  her  with  more  than  his  wonted  gentleness : 

"  Whatta  hellsa  matter  wit  choo?" 

She  felt  the  unusual  concern  in  his  voice,  and  smiled  at  him 
as  best  she  could: 

"I  got  a  kind  of  a  jolt.  I  seen  this  here  pitcher,  and  I  thought 
for  a  minute  it  was  my  sister." 

"Your  sister?  How'd  she  get  her  pitcher  in  the  paper? 
Who  did  she  shoot?" 

He  snatched  the  sheet  from  her  and  saw  the  young  woman 
in  the  young-manly  garb. 

Jake  gloated  over  the  picture:  " Some  looker!  What  is  she, 
a  queen  in  burlecue?" 

Mrs.  Nuddle  held  out  the  burned  sliver  of  paper. 

He  roared.  "London's  ranging  beaut?  And  you're  what 
thinks  she's  your  sister!  The  one  that  ran  away?  Was  she 
a  beaut  like  this?" 

Mrs.  Nuddle  nodded.  He  whistled  and  said,  with  great  tact : 

"Cheese!  but  I  have  the  rotten  luck!  Why  didn't  I  see 
her  first?  Whyn't  you  tell  me  more  about  her?  You  never 
talk  about  her  none.  Why  not?"  No  answer.  "All  I  know 
is  she  went  wrong  and  flew  the  coop." 

Mrs.  Nuddle  flared  at  this.    "Who  said  she  went  wrong?" 

"You  did!"  Jake  retorted  with  vigor.  "Usedn't  you  to  keep 
me  awake  praying  for  her — hollerin'  at  God  to  forgive  her? 
Didn't  you,  or  did  you?"  No  answer.  "And  you  think  this 
is  her!"  The  ridiculousness  of  the  fantasy  smote  him.  "Say, 
you  must  'a'  went  plumb  nutty !  Bendin'  over  that  tub  must 
'a'  gave  you  a  rush  of  brains  to  the  head." 

He  laughed  uproariously  till  she  wanted  to  kill  him.  She 
tried  to  take  back  what  she  had  said: 

"Don't  you  set  there  tellin'  me  I  ever  told  you  nothin' 
mean  about  my  pore  little  sister.  She  was  as  good  a  girl  as 
ever  lived,  Mamise  was." 


THE    CUP    OF    FURY  67 

"You're  changin'  your  tune  now,  ain'tcha?  Because  you 
think  she  looks  like  a  grand  dam  in  pants!  And  where  dya 
get  that  Marnise  stuff?  What  was  her  honestogawd  name? 
Maryer?  You're  tryin'  to  swell  her  up  a  little,  huh?" 

"No,  I  ain't.  She  was  named  Marie  Louise  after  her  gran'- 
maw,  on'y  as  a  baby  she  couldn't  say  it  right.  She  said  'Ma- 
mise.'  That's  what  she  called  her  poor  little  self — Mamise. 
Seems  like  I  can  see  her  now,  settin'  on  the  floor  like  Sister. 
And  where  is  she  now?  O  Gawd!  whatever  become  of  her, 
runnin'  off  thataway — a  little  sixteen-year-ol'  chile,  runnin'  off 
with  a  cheap  thattical  troupe,  because  her  aunt  smacked  her. 

"She  never  had  no  maw  and  no  bringin'  up,  and  she  was  so 
pirty.  She  had  all  the  beauty  of  the  fambly,  folks  all  said." 

"And  that  ain't  no  lie,"  said  Jake,  with  characteristic  gal 
lantry.  "There's  nothin'  but  monopoly  everywheres  in  the 
world.  She  got  all  the  looks  and  I  got  you.  I  wonder  who  got 
her!" 

Jake  sighed  as  he  studied  the  paper,  ransacked  it  noisily  for 
an  article  about  her,  but,  finding  none,  looked  at  the  date 
and  growled: 

"Aw,  this  paper's  nearly  a  year  old — May,  1916,  it  says." 

This  quelled  his  curiosity  a  little,  and  he  turned  to  his  din 
ner,  flinging  it  into  his  jaws  like  a  stoker.  His  wife  went  slip- 
slopping  from  stove  to  table,  ministering  to  him. 

Jake  Nuddle  did  not  look  so  dangerous  as  he  was.  He  was 
like  an  old  tomato-can  that  an  anarchist  has  filled  with  dyna 
mite  and  provided  with  a  trigger  for  the  destruction  of  who 
soever  disturbs  it.  Explosives  are  useful  in  place.  But  Jake 
was  of  the  sort  that  blow  up  regardless  of  the  occasion. 

His  dynamite  was  discontent.  He  hated  everybody  who 
was  richer  or  better  paid,  better  clothed,  better  spoken  of  than 
he  was.  Yet  he  had  nothing  in  him  of  that  constructive  envy 
which  is  called  emulation  and  leads  to  progress,  to  days  of 
toil,  nights  of  thought.  His  idea  of  equality  was  not  to  climb 
to  the  peak,  but  to  drag  the  climbers  down.  Prating  always 
of  the  sufferings  of  the  poor,  he  did  nothing  to  soothe  them  or 
remove  them.  His  only  contribution  to  the  improvement  of 
wages  was  to  call  a  strike  and  get  none  at  all.  His  contribu 
tion  to  the  war  against  oppressive  capital  was  to  denounce  all 
successful  men  as  brutes  and  tyrants,  lumping  the  benefactors 
with  the  malefactors. 


68  THE    CUP    OF    FURY 

Men  of  his  type  made  up  the  blood-spillers  of  the  French 
Revolution,  and  the  packs  of  the  earlier  Jacquerie,  the  thugs 
who  burned  chateaux  and  shops,  and  butchered  women  as 
well  as  men,  growling  their  ominous  refrain: 

"  Noo  sum  zum  cum  eel  zaw  "  (''Nous  sommes  hommes  comme 
Us  sont"). 

The  Jake  Nuddles  are  hate  personified.  They  formed  secret 
armies  of  enemies  now  inside  the  nation  and  threatened  her 
success  in  the  war.  The  thing  that  prevented  their  triumph 
was  that  their  blunders  were  greater  than  their  malice,  their 
folly  more  certain  than  their  villainy.  As  soon  as  America 
entered  the  lists  against  Germany,  the  Jake  Nuddles  would  be 
gin  doing  their  stupid  best  to  prevent  enlistment,  to  persuade 
desertion,  to  stop  war  -  production,  to  wreck  factories  and 
trains,  to  ruin  sawmills  and  burn  crops.  In  the  name  of  free 
dom  they  would  betray  its  most  earnest  defenders,  compel  the 
battle-line  to  face  both  ways.  They  were  more  subtle  than 
the  snaky  spies  of  Germany,  and  more  venomous. 

As  he  wolfed  his  food  now,  Jake  studied  the  picture  of  Marie 
Louise.  The  gentlest  influence  her  beauty  exerted  upon  him 
was  a  beastly  desire.  He  praised  her  grace  because  it  tortured 
his  wife.  But  even  fiercer  than  his  animal  impulse  was  his  rage 
of  hatred  at  the  look  of  cleanliness  and  comeliness,  the  en 
vironment  of  luxury  only  emphasized  by  her  peasant  disguise. 

When  he  had  mopped  his  plate  with  his  bread,  he  took  up 
the  paper  again  and  glared  at  it  with  hostile  envy. 

"Dammer  and  her  arristocratic  ways!  Daughter  of  a  Sir 
and  a  Lady,  eh?  Just  wait  till  we  get  through  with  them  Sirs 
and  Ladies.  We'll  mow  'em  down.  You'll  see.  Robbin'  us 
poor  toilers  that  does  all  the  work !  We'll  put  an  end  to  their 
peerages  and  their  deer-parks.  What  Germany  leaves  of  these 
birds  we'll  finish  up.  And  then  we'll  take  this  rotten  United 
States,  the  rottenest  tyranny  of  all.  Gawdammit!  You  just 
wait!" 

His  wife  just  waited  till  he  had  smashed  the  picture  in  the 
face,  knocked  the  pretty  lady's  portrait  to  the  floor  and  walked 
on  it  as  he  strode  out  to  his  revolution.  Incidentally  he  trod 
on  little  Sister's  hand,  and  she  sent  up  a  caterwaul.  Her  little 
brother  howled  in  duet.  Then  father  turned  on  them. 

"Aw,  shut  up  or  I'll— 

He  did  not  finish  his  sentence.    He  rarely  finished  anything 


THE    CUP    OF    FURY  69 

— except  his  meals.  He  left  his  children  crying  and  his  wife 
in  a  new  distress;  but  then,  revolutions  cannot  pause  for 
women  and  children. 

When  he  had  gone,  and  Sister's  tears  had  dried  on  her  smutty 
face,  Mrs.  Muddle  picked  up  the  smitten  and  trampled  picture 
of  England's  reigning  beauty  and  thought  how  lucky  Miss 
W.  was  to  be  in  England,  blissful  on  Sir  and  Lady  Some- 
body-or-other's  estate. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

WHEN  Mr.  Verrinder  left  Marie  Louise  he  took  from 
her  even  the  props  of  hostility.  She  had  nothing  to 
lean  on  now,  nobody  to  fight  with  for  life  and  reputation. 
She  had  only  suspense  and  confusion.  Agitated  thoughts  fol 
lowed  one  another  in  waves  across  her  soul — grief  for  her 
foster-father  and  mother,  memory  of  their  tendernesses, 
remorse  for  seeming  to  have  deserted  them  in  their  last  hours, 
remorse  for  having  been  the  dupe  of  their  schemes,  and  remorse 
for  that  remorse,  grief  at  losing  the  lovable,  troublesome  chil 
dren,  creature  distress  at  giving  up  the  creature  comforts  of 
the  luxurious  home,  the  revulsion  of  her  unfettered  mind  and 
her  restless  young  body  at  the  prospect  of  exchanging  liberty 
and  occupation  for  the  half-death  of  an  idle  cell — a  kind  of 
coffin  residence — fear  of  being  executed  as  a  spy,  and  fear  of 
being  released  to  drag  herself  through  life  with  the  ball  and 
chain  of  guilt  forever  rolling  and  clanking  at  her  feet. 

Verrinder's  mind  was  hardly  more  at  rest  when  he  left  her 
and  walked  to  his  rooms.  He  carried  the  regret  of  a  protector 
of  England  who  had  bungled  his  task  and  let  the  wards  of  his 
suspicion  break  loose.  The  fault  was  not  his,  but  he  would 
never  escape  the  reproach.  He  had  no  taste  for  taking  re 
venge  on  the  young  woman.  It  would  not  salve  his  pride  to 
visit  on  her  pretty  head  the  thwarted  punishments  due  Sir 
Joseph  and  his  consort  in  guilt.  Besides,  in  spite  of  his  cyni 
cism,  he  had  been  touched  by  Marie  Louise's  sincerities.  She 
proved  them  by  the  very  contradictions  of  her  testimony,  with 
its  history  of  keen  intelligence  alternating  with  curious  blind 
ness.  He  knew  how  people  get  themselves  all  tangled  up  in 
conflicting  duties,  how  they  let  evils  slide  along,  putting  off 
till  to-morrow  the  severing  of  the  cords  and  the  stepping  forth 
with  freedom  from  obligation.  He  knew  that  the  very  best 
people,  being  those  who  are  most  sensitive  to  gratitude  and 


THE    CUP   OF    FURY  71 

to  other  people's  pains,  are  incessantly  let  in  for  complications 
that  never  involve  selfish  or  self-righteous  persons. 

As  an  executive  of  the  law,  he  knew  how  many  laws  there 
are  unwritten  and  implied  that  make  obedience  to  the  law  an 
experiment  in  caddishness  and  ingratitude.  There  were  rea 
sons  enough  then  to  believe  that  Marie  Louise  had  meant 
no  harm  and  had  not  understood  the  evil  in  which  she  was  so 
useful  an  accomplice.  Even  if  she  were  guilty  and  her  bewil 
derment  feigned,  her  punishment  would  be  untimely  at  this 
moment  when  the  Americans  who  abhorred  and  distrusted 
Germany  had  just  about  persuaded  the  majority  of  their 
countrymen  that  the  world  would  be  intolerable  if  Germany 
triumphed,  and  that  the  only  hope  of  defeating  her  tyranny  lay 
in  joining  hands  with  England,  France,  and  Italy. 

The  enemies  of  England  would  be  only  too  glad  to  make  a 
martyr  out  of  Miss  Webling  if  she  were  disciplined  by  Eng 
land.  She  would  be  advertised,  as  a  counterweight  to  the 
hideous  mistake  the  Germans  made  in  immortalizing  with 
their  bullets  the  poor  little  nurse,  "  die  Cavell." 

Verrinder  was  not  himself  at  all  till  he  had  bathed,  shaved, 
and  clothed  his  person  in  clean  linen  and  given  his  inner  man 
its  tea  and  toast.  Once  this  restoration  was  made,  his  tea 
deferred  helped  him  to  the  conclusion  that  the  one  wise  thing 
was  to  restore  Marie  Louise  quietly  to  her  own  country.  He 
went  with  freshened  step  and  determined  mind  to  a  conference 
with  the  eminent  men  concerned.  He  made  his  own  confession 
of  failure  and  took  more  blame  than  he  need  have  accepted. 
Then  he  told  his  plans  for  Marie  Louise  and  made  the  council 
agree  with  him. 

Early  in  the  afternoon  he  called  on  Miss  Webling  and  found 
the  house  a  flurry  of  undertakers,  curious  relatives,  and 
thwarted  reporters.  The  relatives  and  the  reporters  he  satis 
fied  with  a  few  well-chosen  lies.  Then  he  sent  his  name  up 
to  Marie  Louise.  The  butler  thrust  the  card-tray  through  the 
door  as  if  he  were  tossing  a  bit  of  meat  to  some  wild  animal. 

"I'll  be  down,"  said  Marie  Louise,  and  she  primped  herself 
like  another  Mary  Queen  of  Scots  receiving  a  call  from  the 
executioner.  She  was  calmed  by  the  hope  that  she  would 
learn  her  fate,  at  least,  and  she  cared  little  what  it  was,  so 
long  as  it  was  not  unknown. 

Verrinder  did  not  delay  to  spread  his  cards  on  the  table. 


72  THE    CUP   OF    FURY 

" Miss  Webling,  I  begin  again  with  a  question:  If  we  should 
offer  you  freedom  and  silence,  would  you  go  back  to  America 
and  tell  no  one  of  what  has  happened  here?" 

The  mere  hint  was  like  flinging  a  door  open  and  letting 
the  sunlight  into  a  dungeon.  The  very  word  "America" 
was  itself  a  rush  of  fresh  air.  The  long-forgotten  love  of 
country  came  back  into  her  heart  on  a  cry  of  hope. 

"Oh,  you  don't  mean  that  you  might?" 

"We  might.     In  fact,  we  will,  if  you  will  promise — " 

She  could  not  wait  for  his  formal  conclusion.  She  broke 
in:  "I'll  promise  anything — anything!  Oh  I  don't  want 
to  be  free  just  for  the  sake  of  escaping  punishment !  No,  no. 
I  just  want  a  chance  to — to  expiate  the  evil  I  have  done.  I 
want  to  do  some  good  to  undo  all  the  bad  I've  brought  about. 
I  won't  try  to  shift  any  blame.  I  want  to  confess.  It  will 
take  this  awful  load  off  my  heart  to  tell  people  what  a  wicked 
fool  I've  been." 

Verrinder  checked  her:  "But  that  is  just  what  you  must 
not  do.  Unless  you  can  assure  us  that  you  will  cany  this 
burden  about  with  you  and  keep  it  secret  at  no  matter  what 
cost,  then  we  shall  have  to  proceed  with  the  case — legally. 
We  shall  have  to  exhume  Sir  Joseph  and  Lady  Webling,  as 
it  were,  and  drag  the  whole  thing  through  the  courts.  We'd 
really  rather  not,  but  if  you  insist — " 

"Oh,  I'll  promise.     I'll  keep  the  secret.     Let  them  rest." 

She  was  driven  less  by  the  thought  of  her  own  liberty 
than  the  terror  of  exposing  the  dead.  The  mere  thought 
brought  back  pictures  of  hideous  days  when  the  grave  was 
not  refuge  enough  from  vengeance,  when  bodies  were  dug  up, 
gibbeted,  haled  by  a  chain  along  the  unwashed  cobblestones, 
quartered  with  a  sword  in  the  market-place  and  then  flung 
back  to  the  dark. 

Verrinder  may  have  feared  that  Marie  Louise  yielded  under 
duress,  and  that  when  she  was  out  of  reach  of  the  law  she 
would  forget,  so  he  said 

"Would  you  swear  to  keep  this  inviolate?" 

"Yes!" 

"Have  you  a  Bible?" 

She  thought  there  must  be  one,  and  she  searched  for  it 
among  the  bookshelves.  But  first  she  came  across  one  in 
the  German  tongue.  It  fell  open  easily,  as  if  it  had  been  a 


THECUPOFFURY  73 

familiar  companion  of  Sir  Joseph's.  She  abhorred  the  sight 
of  the  words  that  youthful  Sunday-school  lessons  had  given 
an  unearthly  sanctity  as  she  recognized  them  twisted  into  the 
German  paraphrase  and  printed  in  the  twisted  German  type. 
But  she  said: 

"Will  this  do?" 

Verrinder  shook  his  head.  "I  don't  know  that  an  oath 
on  a  German  Bible  would  really  count.  It  might  be  con 
sidered  a  mere  heap  of  paper." 

Marie  Louise  put  it  aside  and  brushed  its  dust  off  her 
fingers.  She  found  an  English  Bible  after  a  further  search. 
Ita  pages  had  seen  the  light  but  seldom.  It  slipped  from 
her  hand  and  fell  open.  She  knelt  to  pick  it  up  with  a  tremor 
of  fear. 

She  rose,  and  before  she  closed  it  glanced  at  the  page 
before  her.  These  words  caught  her  eye: 

For  thus  saith  the  Lord  God  of  Israel  unto  me.  Take  the  winecup 
of  this  fury  at  my  hand,  and  cause  all  the  nations,  to  whom  I  send 
thee,  to  drink  it.  And  they  shall  drink,  and  be  moved,  and  be  mad 
because  of  the  sword  that  I  will  send  among  them. 

She  showed  them  to  Verrinder.  He  nodded  solemnly, 
took  the  book  from  her  hand,  closed  it,  and  held  it  before  her. 
She  put  the  slim  tips  of  her  young  fingers  near  the  talon  of  his 
old  thumb  and  echoed  in  a  timid,  silvern  voice  the  broken 
phrases  he  spoke  in  a  tone  of  bronze: 

"I  solemnly  swear — that  so  long  as  I  live — I  will  tell  no 
one — what  I  know — of  the  crimes  and  death — of  Sir  Joseph 
and  Lady  Webling — unless  called  upon — in  a  court  of  law. 
This  oath  is  made — with  no  mental  reservations — and  is 
binding — under  all  circumstances  whatsoever — so  help  me 
God!" 

When  she  had  whispered  the  last  invocation  he  put  the 
book  away  and  gripped  her  hand  in  his. 

"I  must  remind  you  that  releasing  you  is  highly  illegal — 
and  perhaps  immoral.  Our  action  might  be  overruled  and  the 
whole  case  opened.  But  I  think  you  are  safe,  especially  if 
you  get  to  America — the  sooner  the  better." 

"Thank  you!"  she  said. 

He  laughed,  somewhat  pathetically. 


74  THE    CUP    OF    FURY 

"Good  luck!" 

He  did  not  tell  her  that  England  would  still  be  watching 
over  her,  that  her  name  and  her  history  were  already  cabled 
to  America,  that  she  would  be  shadowed  to  the  steamer, 
observed  aboard  the  boat,  and  picked  up  at  the  dock  by  the 
first  of  a  long  series  of  detectives  constituting  a  sort  of  serial 
guardian  angel. 


BOOK    II 

IN    NEW    YORK 


'*  'T'his  is  the  life  for  me.    I've  been  a.  heroine  and  a  war-worker 
J-      about  as  long  as  I  can." 


CHAPTER  I 

TEAVING  England  quickly  was  not  easy  in  those  days. 
L^  Passenger-steamers  were  few,  irregular,  and  secret.  The 
passport  regulations  were  exceedingly  rigorous,  and  even  Mr. 
Verrinder's  influence  could  not  speed  the  matter  greatly. 

There  was  the  Webling  estate  to  settle  up,  also.  At  Ver 
rinder's  suggestion  Marie  Louise  put  her  affairs  into  the  hands 
of  counsel,  and  he  arranged  her  surrender  of  all  claims  on  the 
Webling  estate.  But  he  insisted  that  she  should  keep  the 
twenty  thousand  pounds  that  had  been  given  to  her  absolutely. 
He  may  have  been  influenced  in  this  by  his  inability  to  see 
from  what  other  funds  he  could  collect  his  fee. 

Eventually  he  placed  her  aboard  a  liner,  and  her  bonds  in  the 
purser's  safe ;  and  eventually  the  liner  stole  out  into  the  ocean, 
through  such  a  gantlet  of  lurking  demons  as  old  superstitions 
peopled  it  with. 

She  had  not  told  the  children  good-by,  but  had  delivered 
them  to  the  Oakbys  and  run  away.  The  Oakbys  had  received 
her  with  a  coldness  that  startled  her.  They  used  the  expres 
sion,  "Under  the  circumstances,"  with  a  freezing  implica 
tion  that  made  her  wonder  if  the  secret  had  already  trickled 
through  to  them. 

On  the  steamer  there  was  nobody  she  knew.  At  the  dock 
no  friends  greeted  her.  She  did  not  notice  that  her  arrival 
was  noted  by  a  certain  Mr.  Larrey,  who  had  been  detailed  to 
watch  her  and  saw  with  some  pride  how  pretty  she  was. 
"  It  '11  be  a  pleasure  to  keep  an  eye  on  her,"  he  told  a  luckless 
colleague  who  had  a  long-haired  pacifist  professor  allotted  to 
him.  But  Marie  Louise's  mystic  squire  had  not  counted  on 
her  stopping  in  New  York  for  only  a  day  and  then  setting 
forth  on  a  long,  hot,  stupid  train-ride  of  two  days  to  the 
little  town  of  her  birth,  Wakefield. 

Larrey  found  it  appalling.   Marie  Louise  found  it  far  smaller 


78  THE    CUP    OF    FURY 

and  shabbier  than  she  had  imagined.     Yet  it  had  grown  some, 
too,  since  her  time. 

At  least,  most  of  the  people  she  had  known  had  moved  away 
to  the  cities  or  the  cemeteries,  and  new  people  had  taken  their 
place.  She  had  not  known  many  of  the  better  people.  Her 
mother  had  been  too  humble  to  sew  for  them. 

Coming  from  London  and  the  country  life  of  England,  she 
found  the  town  intolerably  ugly.  It  held  no  associations  for 
her.  She  had  been  unhappy  there,  and  she  said:  "Poor  me! 
No  wonder  I  ran  away."  She  justified  her  earlier  self  with 
a  kind  of  mothering  sympathy.  She  longed  for  some  one  to 
mother  her  present  self. 

But  her  sister  was  not  to  be  found.  The  old  house  where 
they  had  lived  was  replaced  by  a  factory  that  had  made 
suspenders  and  now  was  turning  out  cartridge-belts.  She 
found  no  one  who  knew  her  sister  at  all.  She  did  not 
give  her  own  name,  for  many  reasons,  and  her  face  was  not 
remembered.  A  few  people  recalled  the  family.  The  town 
marshal  vaguely  placed  her  father  as  a  frequent  boarder  at  the 
jail. 

One  sweet  old  lady,  for  whom  Marie  Louise's  mother  had 
done  sewing,  had  a  kind  of  notion  that  one  of  the  sisters  had 
run  away  and  that  the  other  sister  had  left  town  with  somebody 
for  somewhere  sometime  after.  But  that  was  all  that  the 
cupboard  of  her  recollection  disclosed. 

Anatole  France  has  a  short  story  of  Pilate  in  his  old  age 
meeting  his  predecessor  as  Proconsul  in  Jerusalem.  During 
their  senile  gossip  the  elder  asks  if  Pilate  had  known  a  certain 
beauty  named  Mary  of  Magdala.  Pilate  shakes  his  head. 
The  other  has  heard  that  she  took  up  with  a  street-preacher 
called  Jesus  from,  the  town  of  Nazareth.  Pilate  ponders, 
shakes  his  head  again,  and  confesses,  "I  don't  remember 
him." 

It  was  not  strange,  then,  that  Marie  Louise's  people,  who 
had  made  almost  no  impression  on  the  life  of  the  town,  should 
have  lapsed  from  its  memory.  But  it  was  discouraging. 
Marie  Louise  felt  as  much  of  an  anachronism  as  old  Rip  Van 
Winkle,  though  she  looked  no  more  like  him  than  an  exquisite, 
fashionable  young  woman  could  look  like  a  gray-bearded  sot 
who  has  slept  in  his  clothes  for  twenty  years. 

Her  private  detective,  Larrey,  homesick  for  New  York, 


THE    CUP   OF    FURY  79 

was  overjoyed  when  she  went  back,  but  she  was  disconsolate 
and  utterly  detached  from  life.  The  prodigal  had  come  home, 
but  the  family  had  moved  away. 

She  took  a  comfortable  little  nook  in  an  apartment  hotel 
and  settled  down  to  meditate.  The  shops  interested  her, 
and  she  browsed  away  among  them  for  furniture  and  clothes 
and  books. 

Marie  Louise  had  not  been  in  her  homeless  home  long  when 
the  President  visited  Congress  and  asked  it  to  declare  a  state 
of  war  against  Germany.  She  was  exultant  over  the  great 
step,  but  the  wilful  few  who  held  Congress  back  from  answer 
ing  the  summons  revealed  to  her  why  the  nation  had  been 
so  slow  in  responding  to  the  crisis.  Even  now,  after  so  much 
insult  and  outrage,  vast  numbers  of  Americans  denied  that 
there  was  any  cause  for  war. 

But  the  patience  of  the  majority  had  been  worn  thin. 
The  opposition  was  swept  away,  and  America  declared  herself 
in  the  arena — in  spirit  at  least.  Impatient  souls  who  had 
prophesied  how  the  millions  would  spring  to  arms  over 
night  wondered  at  the  failure  to  commit  a  miracle.  The 
Germans,  who  had  prepared  for  forty  years,  laughed  at  the 
new  enemy  and  felt  guaranteed  by  five  impossibilities:  that 
America  should  raise  a  real  army,  or  equip  it,  or  know  how  to 
train  it,  or  be  able  to  get  it  past  the  submarine  barrier,  or 
feed  the  few  that  might  sneak  through. 

America's  vast  resources  were  unready,  unwieldy,  unknown. 
The  first  embarrassment  was  the  panic  of  volunteers. 

Marie  Louise  was  only  one  of  the  hundred  million  who  sprang 
madly  in  all  directions  and  landed  nowhere.  She  wanted  to 
volunteer,  too,  but  for  what?  What  could  she  do?  Where 
could  she  get  it  to  do?  In  the  chaos  of  her  impatience  she 
did  nothing. 

Supping  alone  at  the  Biltmore  one  night,  she  was  seen, 
hailed,  and  seized  by  Polly  Widdicombe.  Marie  Louise's  de 
tective  knew  who  Polly  was.  He  groaned  to  note  that  she 
was  the  first  friend  his  client  had  found. 

Polly,  giggling  adorably,  embraced  her  and  kissed  her 
before  everybody  in  the  big  Tudor  Room.  And  Polly's  hus 
band  greeted  her  with  warmth  of  hand  and  voice. 

Marie  Louise  almost  wept,  almost  cried  aloud  with  joy. 
The  prodigal  was  home,  had  been  welcomed  with  a  kiss. 

6 


8o  THE    CUP   OF    FURY 

Evidently  her  secret  had  not  crossed  the  ocean.  She  could 
take  up  life  again.  Some  day  the  past  would  confront  and 
denounce  her,  perhaps;  but  for  the  moment  she  was  en 
franchised  anew  of  human  society. 

Polly  said  that  she  had  read  of  Sir  Joseph's  death  and  his 
wife's,  and  what  a  shock  it  must  have  been  to  poor  Marie 
Louise,  but  how  well  she  bore  up  under  it,  and  how  perfectly 
darn  beautiful  she  was,  and  what  a  shame  that  it  was  almost 
midnight!  She  and  her  hub.  were  going  to  Washington. 
Everybody  was,  of  course.  Why  wasn't  Marie  Louise  there? 
And  Polly's  husband  was  to  be  a  major — think  of  it !  He  was 
going  to  be  all  dolled  up  in  olive  drab  and  things  and — 
"Damn  the  clock,  anyway;  if  we  miss  that  train  we  can't 
get  on  another  for  days.  And  what's  your  address?  Write 
it  on  the  edge  of  that  bill  of  fare  and  tear  it  off,  and  I'll  write 
you  the  minute  I  get  settled,  for  you  must  come  to  us  and  no 
where  else  and —  Good-by,  darling  child,  and —  All  right, 
Tom,  I'm  coming!" 

And  she  was  gone. 

Marie  Louise  went  back  to  her  seclusion  much  happier 
and  yet  much  lonelier.  She  had  found  a  friend  who  had  not 
heard  of  her  disgrace.  She  had  lost  a  friend  who  still  rejoiced 
to  see  her. 

But  her  faithful  watchman  was  completely  discouraged. 
When  he  turned  in  his  report  he  threatened  to  turn  in  his 
resignation  unless  he  were  relieved  of  the  futile  task  of  record 
ing  Marie  Louise's  blameless  and  eventless  life. 

And  then  the  agent's  night  was  turned  to  day — at  least  his 
high  noon  was  turned  to  higher.  For  a  few  days  later  Marie 
Louise  was  abruptly  addressed  by  Nicky  Easton. 

She  had  been  working  in  the  big  Red  Cross  shop  on  Fifth 
Avenue,  rolling  bandages  and  making  dressings  with  a  crowd 
of  other  white-fingered  women.  A  cable  had  come  that  there 
was  a  sudden  need  for  at  least  ten  thousand  bandages.  These 
were  not  yet  for  American  soldiers  in  France,  though  their 
turn  would  come,  and  their  wholesale  need.  But  as  Marie 
Louise  wrought  she  could  imagine  the  shattered  flesh,  the 
crying  nerves  of  some  poor  patriot  whose  gaping  wound  this 
linen  pack  would  smother.  And  her  own  nerves  cried  out  in 
vicarious  crucifixion.  At  noon  she  left  the  factory  for  a  little 
air  and  a  bite  of  lunch. 


THE    CUP   OF    FURY  si 

Nicky  Easton  appeared  out  of  her  list  of  the  buried.  She 
gasped  at  sight  of  him. 

"I  thought  you  were  dead." 

He  laughed:  "If  I  am  it,  thees  is  my  Doppelgdnger."  And 
he  began  to  hum  with  a  grisly  smile  Schubert's  setting  to 
Heine's  poem  of  the  man  who  met  his  own  ghost  and  double, 
aping  his  love-sorrow  outside  the  home  of  his  dead  sweetheart : 

"Der  Mond  zeigt  mlr  meine  eig'ne  Gestalt. 
Du  Doppelgdnger,  du  bleicher  Gesellel 
Was  dffsl  du  nach  mein  Liebesleid, 
Das  mich  gequdlt  auf  dieser  Stelle 
So  manche  Nacht  in  alter  Zeit." 

Marie  Louise  was  terrified  by  the  harrowing  emotions  the 
song  always  roused  in  her,  but  more  by  the  dreadful  sensation 
of  walking  that  crowded  Avenue  with  a  man  humming  German 
at  her  side. 

"Hush!    Hush,  in  Heaven's  name!"  she  pleaded. 

He  laughed  Teutonically,  and  asked  her  to  lunch  with  him. 

"I  have  another  engagement,  and  I  am  late,"  she  said. 

"Where  are  you  living?" 

She  felt  inspired  to  give  him  a  false  address.  He  insisted 
on  walking  with  her  to  the  Waldorf,  where  she  said  her 
engagement  was. 

"You  don't  ask  me  where  I  have  been?" 

"I  was  just  going  to.  The  last  I  heard  you  were  in  the 
London  Tower  or  somewhere.  However  did  you  get  out?" 

"The  same  way  like  you  ditt.  I  thought  you  should  choin 
me  therein,  but  you  also  told  all  you  knew  and  some  more 
yet,  yes?" 

She  saw  tnen  that  he  had  turned  state  s  evidence.  Perhaps 
he  had  betrayed  Sir  Joseph.  Somehow  she  found  it  possible 
to  loathe  him  extra.  She  lacked  the  strength  to  deny  his 
odious  insinuation  about  herself.  He  went  on: 

"Now  I  am  in  America.  I  could  not  dare  go  to  Germany 
now.  But  here  I  try  to  gain  back  my  place  in  Deutschland. 
These  English  think  they  use  me  for  a  stool-pitcheon.  But 
they  will  find  out,  and  when  Deutschland  ist  uber  alles — ach, 
Gottf  You  shall  help  me.  We  do  some  work  togedder.  I 
come  soon  by  your  house.  Auf —  Goot-py." 


82  THE    CUP   OF    FURY 

He  left  her  at  the  hotel  door  and  lifted  his  hat.  She  went 
into  the  labyrinth  and  lost  herself.  When  her  heart  had 
ceased  fluttering  and  she  grew  calm  from  very  fatigue  of 
alarm  she  resolved  to  steal  out  of  New  York. 

She  spent  an  afternoon  and  an  evening  of  indecision. 
Night  brought  counsel.  Polly  Widdicombe  had  offered  her  a 
haven,  and  in  the  country.  It  would  be  an  ideal  hiding- 
place.  She  set  to  work  at  midnight  packing  her  trunk. 


CHAPTER  II 

MARIE  LOUISE  tried  all  the  next  morning  to  telephone 
from  New  York  to  Washington,  but  it  seemed  that 
everybody  on  earth  was  making  the  same  effort.  It  was  a  wire 
Babel. 

Washington  was  suddenly  America  in  the  same  way  that 
London  had  long  been  England;  and  Paris  France.  The 
entire  population  was  apparently  trying  to  get  into  Washing 
ton  in  order  to  get  out  again.  People  wrote,  telegraphed, 
radiographed,  telephoned,  and  traveled  thither  by  all  the 
rail-  and  motor-roads.  Washington  was  the  narrow  neck  of 
the  funnel  leading  to  the  war,  and  the  sleepy  old  home  of 
debate  and  administration  was  suddenly  dumfounded  to  find 
itself  treated  to  all  the  horrors  of  a  boom-town — it  was  like 
San  Francisco  in  '49. 

Marie  Louise,  who  had  not  yet  recovered  her  American 
dialect,  kept  pleading  with  Long  Distance: 

"Oh,  I  say,  cahn't  you  put  me  through  to  Washington? 
It's  no  end  important,  really!  Rosslyn,  seven  three  one  two. 
I  want  to  speak  to  Mrs.  Widdicombe.  I  am  Miss  Webling. 
Thank  you." 

The  obliging  central  asked  her  telephone  number  and 
promised  to  call  her  in  a  moment.  Eternity  is  but  a  moment 
— to  some  centrals.  Marie  Louise,  being  finite  and  ephemeral, 
never  heard  from  that  central  again.  Later  she  took  up  the 
receiver  and  got  another  central,  who  had  never  heard  her  tale 
of  woe  and  had  to  have  it  all  over  again.  This  central  also 
asked  her  name  and  number  and  promised  to  report,  then 
vanished  into  the  interstellar  limbo  where  busy  centrals  go. 

Again  and  again  Marie  Louise  waited  and  called,  and  told 
and  retold  her  prayer  till  it  turned  to  gibberish  and  she  began 
to  doubt  her  own  name  and  to  mix  the  telephone  number 
hopelessly.  Then  she  went  into  her  hand-bag  and  pawed 
about  in  the  little  pocket  edition  of  confusion  till  she  found 


84  THE    CUP   OF    FURY 

the  note  that  Polly  had  sent  her  at  once  from  Washington 
with  the  address,  Grinden  Hall,  Rosslyn,  and  the  telephone 
number  and  the  message. 

So  glad  you're  on  this  side  of  the  water,  dear.  Do  run  over  and 
see  us.  Perfect  barn  of  a  house,  and  lost  in  the  country,  but  there's 
always  room — especially  for  you,  dear.  You'll  never  get  in  at  a  hotel. 

Marie  Louise  propped  this  against  the  telephone  and  tried 
again. 

The  seventh  central  dazed  her  with,  "We  can  take  nothing 
but  gov'ment  business  till  two  P.M." 

Marie  Louise  rose  in  despair,  searched  in  her  bag  for  her 
watch,  gasped,  put  the  watch  and  the  note  back  in  her  bag, 
snapped  it,  and  rose  to  go. 

She  decided  to  send  Polly  a  telegram.  She  took  out  the 
note  for  the  address  and  telephoned  a  telegram,  saying  that 
she  would  arrive  at  five  o'clock.  The  telegraph-operator  told 
her  that  the  company  could  not  guarantee  delivery,  as  traffic 
over  the  wires  was  very  heavy.  Marie  Louise  sighed  and 
rose,  worn  out  with  telephone-fag. 

She  told  the  maid  to  ask  the  hall-boy  to  get  her  a  taxi, 
and  hastily  made  ready  to  leave.  Her  trunks  had  gone  to  the 
station  an  hour  ago,  and  they  had  been  checked  through  from 
the  house. 

Her  final  pick-up  glance  about  the  room  did  not  pick 
up  the  note  she  had  propped  on  the  telephone-table.  She 
left  it  there  and  closed  the  door  on  another  chapter  of  her  life. 

She  rode  to  the  station,  and,  after  standing  in  line  for  a 
weary  while,  learned  that  not  a  seat  was  to  be  had  in  a  parlor- 
car  to-day,  to-morrow,  or  any  day  for  two  weeks.  Berths 
at  night  were  still  more  unobtainable. 

She  decided  that  she  might  as  well  go  in  a  day-coach. 
Scores  of  people  had  had  the  same  idea  before  her.  The  day- 
coaches  were  filled.  She  sidled  through  the  crowded  aisles 
and  found  no  seat.  She  invaded  the  chair-cars  in  desperation. 

In  one  of  these  she  saw  a  porter  bestowing  hand-luggage. 
She  appealed  to  him.  "You  must  have  one  chair  left." 

He  was  hardly  polite  in  his  answer.  "No,  ma'am,  I  ain't. 
I  ain't  a  single  chair." 

"But  I've  got  to  sit  somewhere,"  she  said. 


THE    CUP   OF    FURY  85 

The  porter  did  not  comment  on  such  a  patent  fallacy.  He 
moved  back  to  the  front  to  repel  boarders.  Several  men  stared 
from  the  depths  of  their  dentist's  chairs,  but  made  no  proffer 
of  their  seats.  They  believed  that  woman's  newfangled 
equality  included  the  privilege  of  standing  up. 

One  man,  however,  gave  a  start  as  of  recognition,  real  or 
pretended.  Marie  Louise  did  not  know  him,  and  said  so  with 
her  eyes.  His  smile  of  recognition  changed  to  a  smile  of 
courtesy.  He  proffered  her  his  seat  with  an  old-fashioned 
gesture.  She  declined  with  a  shake  of  the  head  and  a  coldly 
correct  smile. 

He  insisted  academically,  as  much  as  to  say:  "I  can  see 
that  you  are  a  gentlewoman.  Please  accept  me  as  a  gentle 
man  and  permit  me  to  do  my  duty."  There  was  a  brief,  silent 
tug-of-war  between  his  unselfishness  and  hers.  He  won. 
Before  she  realized  it,  she  had  dropped  wearily  into  his  place. 

"But  where  will  you  sit?"  she  said. 

"Oh,  I'll  get  along." 

He  smiled  and  moved  off,  lugging  his  suit-case.  He  had  the 
air  of  one  who  would  get  along.  He  had  shown  himself  mas 
terful  in  two  combats,  and  compelled  her  to  take  the  chair  he 
had  doubtless  engaged  with  futile  providence  days  before. 

"Rahthah  a  decentish  chap,  with  a  will  of  his  own,"  she 
thought. 

The  train  started,  left  the  station  twilight,  plunged  into  the 
tunnel  of  gloom  and  made  the  dip  under  the  Hudson  River. 
People  felt  their  ears  buzz  and  smother.  Wise  ones  swallowed 
hard.  The  train  came  back  to  the  surface  and  the  sunlight, 
and  ran  across  New  Jersey. 

Marie  Louise  decided  to  take  her  luncheon  early,  to  make 
sure  of  it.  Nearly  everybody  else  had  decided  to  do  the  same 
thing.  At  this  time  all  the  people  in  America  seemed  to  be 
thinking  en  masse.  When  she  reached  the  dining-car  every 
seat  was  taken  and  there  was  a  long  bread-line  in  the  narrow 
corridor. 

The  wilful  man  was  at  the  head.  He  fished  for  her  eye, 
caught  it,  and  motioned  to  her  to  take  his  place.  She  shook  her 
head.  But  it  seemed  to  do  no  good  to  shake  heads  at  him; 
he  came  down  the  corridor  and  lifted  his  hat.  His  voice  and 
words  were  pleading,  but  his  tone  was  imperative. 

"Please  take  my  place." 


86  THE    CUP   OF    FURY 

She  shook  her  head,  but  he  still  held  his  hand  out,  pointing. 
She  was  angry  at  being  bossed  even  for  her  own  benefit. 
Worse  yet,  by  the  time  she  got  to  the  head  of  the  line  the 
second  man  had  moved  up  to  first.  He  stared  at  her  as  if  he 
wondered  what  she  was  doing  there.  She  fell  back,  doubly 
vexed,  but  That  Man  advanced  and  gave  the  interloper  a 
look  like  a  policeman's  shove.  The  fellow  backed  up  on  the 
next  man's  toes.  Then  the  cavalier  smiled  Miss  Webling  to 
her  place  and  went  back  to  the  foot  of  the  class  without  wait 
ing  for  her  furious  thanks. 

She  wanted  to  stamp  her  foot.  She  had  always  hated  to 
be  cowed  or  compelled  to  take  chairs  or  money.  People  who 
had  tried  to  move  her  soul  or  lend  her  their  experience  or  their 
advantages  had  always  aroused  resentment. 

Before  long  she  had  a  seat.  The  man  opposite  her  was  just 
thumbing  his  last  morsel  of  pie.  She  supposed  that  when  he 
left  That  Man  would  take  the  chair  and  order  her  luncheon 
for  her.  But  it  was  not  so  to  be.  She  passed  him  still  well 
down  the  line.  He  had  probably  given  his  place  to  other 
women  in  succession.  She  did  not  like  that.  It  seemed  a  trifle 
unfaithful  or  promiscuous  or  something.  The  rescuer  owes  the 
rescuee  a  certain  fidelity.  He  did  not  look  at  her.  He  did  not 
claim  even  a  glance  of  gratitude. 

It  was  so  American  a  gallantry  that  she  resented  it.  If  he 
had  seemed  to  ask  for  the  alms  of  a  smile,  she  would  have 
insulted  him.  Yet  it  was  not  altogether  satisfactory  to  be 
denied  the  privilege.  She  fumed.  Everything  was  wrong.  She 
sat  in  her  cuckoo's  nest  and  glared  at  the  reeling  landscape. 

Suddenly  she  began  pawing  through  that  private  chaos, 
looking  for  Polly  Widdicombe's  letter.  She  could  not  find  it. 
She  found  the  checks  for  her  trunks,  a  handkerchief,  a  pair  of 
gloves,  and  various  other  things,  but  not  the  letter.  This  gave 
her  a  new  fright. 

She  remembered  now  that  she  had  left  it  on  the  telephone- 
table.  She  could  see  it  plainly  as  her  remembered  glance  took 
its  last  survey  of  the  room.  The  brain  has  a  way  of  developing 
occasional  photographs  very  slowly.  Something  strikes  our 
eyes,  and  we  do  not  really  see  it  till  long  after.  We  hear  words 
and  say,  "How's  that?"  or,  "I  beg  your  pardon!"  and  hear 
them  again  before  they  can  be  repeated. 

This  belated  feat  of  memory  encouraged  Miss  Webling  to 


THE    CUP   OF    FURY  87 

hope  that  she  could  remember  a  little  farther  back  to  the  con 
tents  of  the  letter  and  the  telephone  number  written  there. 
But  her  memory  would  not  respond.  The  effort  to  cudgel  it 
seemed  to  confuse  it.  She  kept  on  forgetting  more  and  more 
completely. 

All  she  could  remember  was  what  Polly  Widdicombe  had 
said  about  there  being  no  chance  to  get  into  a  hotel — "an 
h6tel,"  Marie  Louise  still  thought  it. 

It  grew  more  and  more  evident  that  the  train  would  be  hours 
late.  People  began  to  worry  audibly  about  the  hotels  that 
would  probably  refuse  them  admission.  At  length  they  began 
to  stroll  toward  the  dining-car  for  an  early  dinner. 

Marie  Louise,  to  make  sure  of  the  meal  and  for  lack  of 
other  employment,  went  along.  There  was  no  queue  in 
the  corridor  now.  She  did  not  have  to  take  That  Man's 
place.  She  found  one  at  a  little  empty  table.  But  by  and 
by  he  appeared,  and,  though  there  were  other  vacant  seats, 
he  sat  down  opposite  her. 

She  could  hardly  order  the  conductor  to  eject  him  In 
fact,  seeing  that  she  owed  him  for  her  seat —  It  suddenly  smote 
her  that  he  must  have  paid  for  it.  She  owed  him  money! 
This  was  unendurable! 

He  made  no  attempt  to  speak  to  her,  but  at  length  she 
found  courage  to  speak  to  him. 

"I  beg  your  pardon — " 

He  looked  up  and  about  for  the  salt  or  something  to  pass, 
but  she  went  on: 

"May  I  ask  you  how  much  you  paid  for  the  seat  you  gave 
me?" 

He  laughed  outright  at  this  unexpected  demand: 

"Why,  I  don't  remember,  I'm  sure." 

"Oh,  but  you  must,  and  you  must  let  me  repay  it.  It 
just  occurred  to  me  that  I  had  cheated  you  out  of  your  chair, 
and  your  money,  too." 

"That's  mighty  kind  of  you,"  he  said. 

He  laughed  again,  but  rather  tenderly,  and  she  was  grateful 
to  him  for  having  the  tact  not  to  be  flamboyant  about  it 
and  not  insisting  on  forgetting  it. 

"I'll  remember  just  how  much  it  was  in  a  minute,  and  if 
you  will  feel  easier  about  it,  I'll  ask  you  for  it." 

"I  could  hardly  rob  a  perfect  stranger,"  she  began. 


88  THE    CUP   OF    FURY 

He  broke  in:  "They  say  nobody  is  perfect,  and  I'm  not  a 
perfect  stranger.  I've  met  you  before,  Miss  Webling." 

"Not  rilly!  Wherever  was  it?  I'm  so  stupid  not  to  re 
member — even  your  name." 

He  rather  liked  her  for  not  bluffing  it  through.  He  could 
understand  her  haziness  the  better  from  the  fact  that  when 
he  first  saw  her  in  the  chair-car  and  leaped  to  his  feet  it  was 
because  he  had  identified  her  once  more  with  the  long-lost,  long- 
sought  beauty  of  years  long  gone — the  girl  he  had  seen  in  the 
cheap  vaudeville  theater.  This  slip  of  memory  had  uncov 
ered  another  memory.  He  had  corrected  the  palimpsest 
and  recalled  her  as  the  Miss  Webling  whom  he  had  met  in 
London.  She  had  given  him  the  same  start  then  as  now,  and, 
as  he  recalled  it,  she  had  snubbed  him  rather  vigorously. 
So  he  had  kept  his  distance.  But  the  proffer  of  the  money 
for  the  chair-car  chair  broke  the  ice  a  little.  He  said  at  last : 

"My  name  is  Ross  Davidge.  I  met  you  at  your  father's 
house  in  London." 

This  seemed  to  agitate  her  peculiarly.  She  trembled  and 
gasped: 

"You  don't  mean  it.     I —    Oh  yes,  of  course  I  remember — 

"Please  don't  lie  about  it,"  he  pleaded,  bluntly,  "for  of 
course  you  don't." 

She  laughed,  but  very  nervously. 

"Well,  we  did  give  very  large  dinners." 

"It  was  a  very  large  one  the  night  I  was  there.  I  was  a 
mile  down  the  street  from  you,  and  I  said  nothing  immortal. 
I  was  only  a  business  acquaintance  of  Sir  Joseph's,  anyway. 
It  was  about  ships,  of  course." 

He  saw  that  her  mind  was  far  away  and  under  strange 
excitation.  But  she  murmured,  distantly: 

"Oh,  so  you  are — interested  in  ships?" 

"I  make  'em  for  a  living." 

"Rilly!     How  interesting!" 

This  constraint  was  irksome.     He  ventured : 

"How  is  the  old  boy?  Sir  Joseph,  I  mean.  He's  well,  I 
hope." 

Her  eyes  widened.  "Didn't  you  know?  Didn't  you  read 
in  the  papers — about  their  death  together?" 

"Theirs?     His  wife  and  he  died  together?" 

"Yes." 


THE    CUP   OF    FURY  89 

"In  a  submarine  attack?" 

"  No,  at  home.  It  was  in  all  the  papers — about  their  dying 
on  the  same  night,  from — from  ptomaine  poisoning." 

"No!" 

He  put  a  vast  amount  of  shock  and  regret  in  the  mumbled 
word.  He  explained:  "I  must  have  been  out  in  the  forest 
or  in  the  mines  at  the  time.  Forgive  me  for  opening  the 
old  wound.  How  long  ago  was  it?  I  see  you're  out  of 
mourning." 

"Sir  Joseph  abominated  black;  and  besides,  few  people  wear 
mourning  in  England  during  the  war." 

"That's  so.  Poor  old  England!  You  poor  Englishwomen 
— mothers  and  daughters!  My  God!  what  you've  gone 
through!  And  such  pluck!" 

Before  he  realized  what  he  was  doing  his  hand  went  across 
and  touched  hers,  and  he  clenched  it  for  just  a  moment  of 
fierce  sympathy.  She  did  not  resent  the  message.  Then  he 
muttered: 

"I  know  what  it  means.  I  lost  my  father  and  mother — not 
at  once,  of  course — years  apart.  But  to  lose  them  both  in 
one  night!" 

She  made  a  sharp  attempt  at  self-control: 

"Please!    I  beg  you — please  don't  speak  of  it." 

He  was  so  sorry  that  he  said  nothing  more.  Marie  Louise 
was  doubly  fascinating  to  him  because  she  was  in  sorrow  and 
afraid  of  something  or  somebody.  Besides,  she  was  in 
accessible,  and  Ross  Davidge  always  felt  a  challenge  from  the 
impossible  and  the  inaccessible. 

She  called  for  her  check  and  paid  it,  and  tipped  the  waiter 
and  rose.  She  smiled  wretchedly  at  him  as  he  rose  with  her. 
She  left  the  dining-car,  and  he  sat  down  and  cursed  himself 
for  a  brute  and  a  blunderer. 

He  kept  in  the  offing,  so  that  if  she  wanted  him  she  could 
call  him,  but  he  thought  it  the  politer  politeness  not  to  italicize 
his  chivalry.  He  was  so  distressed  that  he  forgot  that  she  had 
forgotten  to  pay  him  for  the  chair. 

It  was  good  and  dark  when  the  train  pulled  into  Washington 
at  last.  The  dark  gave  Marie  Louise  another  reason  for  dis 
may.  The  appearance  of  a  man  who  had  dined  at  Sir  Joseph's, 
and  the  necessity  for  telling  him  the  lie  about  that  death, 
had  brought  on  a  crisis  of  nerves.  She  was  afraid  of  the  dark, 


90  THE    CUP   OF    FURY 

but  more  afraid  of  the  man  who  might  ask  still  more  questions. 
She  avoided  him  purposely  when  she  left  the  train. 

A  porter  took  her  hand-baggage  and  led  her  to  the  taxi- 
stand.  Polly  Widdicombe's  car  was  not  waiting.  Marie 
Louise  went  to  the  front  of  the  building  to  see  if  she  might 
be  there.  She  was  appalled  at  the  thought  of  Polly's  not 
meeting  her.  She  needed  her  blessed  giggle  as  never  before. 

It  was  a  very  majestic  station.  Marie  Louise  had  heard 
people  say  that  it  was  much  too  majestic  for  a  railroad 
station.  As  if  America  did  not  owe  more  to  the  iron  god 
of  the  rails  than  to  any  of  her  other  deities ! 

Before  her  was  the  Capitol,  lighted  from  below,  its  dome 
floating  cloudily  above  the  white  parapets  as  if  mystically 
sustained.  The  superb  beauty  of  it  clutched  her  throat. 
She  wanted  to  do  something  for  it  and  all  the  holy  ideals  it 
symbolized. 

Evidently  Polly  was  not  coming.  The  telegram  had  prob 
ably  never  reached  her.  The  porter  asked  her,  "Was  you 
thinkin'  of  a  taxi?"  and  she  said,  "Yes,"  only  to  realize 
that  she  had  no  address  to  give  the  driver. 


BOOK   III 

IN   WASHINGTON 


'  Tt's  beautiful  overhead  if  you're  going  that  way,'  "  Davidge 
-*    quoted.     He  set  out  briskly,   but  Marie    Louise    hung 
back.     "Aren't  you  afraid  to  push  on  when  you    can't  see 
where  you're  going?  "  she  demanded. 


CHAPTER  I 

SHE  went  through  her  hand-bag  again,  while  the  porter 
computed  how  many  tips  he  was  missing  and  the  cab- 
starter  looked  insufferable  things  about  womankind. 

She  asked  if  any  of  them  knew  where  Grinden  Hall  might 
be,  but  they  shook  their  heads.  She  had  a  sudden  happy 
idea.  She  would  ask  the  telephone  Information  for  the 
number.  She  hurried  to  a  booth,  followed  by  the  despond 
ent  porter.  She  asked  for  Information  and  got  her,  but  that 
was  all. 

"Please  give  me  the  numba  of  Mrs.  Widdicombe's,  in 
Rosslyn." 

A  Washington  dialect  eventually  told  her  that  the  number 
was  a  private  wire  and  could  not  be  given. 

Marie  Louise  implored  a  special  dispensation,  but  it  was 
against  the  rules. 

She  asked  for  the  supervisor — who  was  equally  sorry  and 
adamant.  Marie  Louise  left  the  booth  in  utter  defeat. 
There  was  nothing  to  do  but  go  to  a  hotel  till  the  morrow. 

She  recalled  the  stories  of  the  hopelessness  of  getting  a  room. 
Yet  she  had  no  choice  but  to  make  the  try.  She  had  got  a 
seat  on  the  train  where  there  were  none.  Perhaps  she  could 
trust  her  luck  to  provide  her  with  a  lodging,  too. 

"We'll  go  back  to  the  taxi-stand,"  she  told  the  porter. 

He  did  not  conceal  his  joy  at  being  rid  of  her. 

She  tried  the  Shoreham  first,  and  when  the  taxicab  deposited 
her  under  the  umbrellas  of  the  big  trees  and  she  climbed  the 
homelike  steps  to  a  lobby  with  the  air  of  a  living-room  she 
felt  welcome  and  secure.  Brilliant  clusters  were  drifting  to 
dinner,  and  the  men  were  more  picturesque  than  the  women, 
for  many  of  them  were  in  uniform.  Officers  of  the  army  and 
navy  of  the  United  States  and  of  Great  Britain  and  of  France 
gave  the  throng  the  look  of  a  costume-party. 


94  THE    CUP   OF    FURY 

There  was  a  less  interesting  crowd  at  the  desk,  and  now 
nobody  offered  her  his  place  at  the  head  of  the  line.  It 
would  have  done  no  good,  for  the  room-clerk  was  shaking 
his  head  to  all  the  suppliants.  Marie  Louise  saw  women 
turned  away,  married  couples,  men  alone.  But  new-comers 
pressed  forward  and  kept  trying  to  convince  the  deskman 
that  he  had  rooms  somewhere,  rooms  that  he  had  forgotten, 
or  was  saving  for  people  who  would  never  arrive. 

He  stood  there  shaking  his  head  like  a  toy  in  a  window. 
People  tried  to  get  past  him  in  all  the  ways  people  try  to 
get  through  life,  in  the  ways  that  Saint  Peter  must  grow 
very  tired  of  at  the  gate  of  heaven — bluff,  whine,  bribery, 
intimidation,  flirtation. 

Some  demanded  their  rights  with  full  confidence  and  would 
not  take  no  for  answer.  Some  pleaded  with  hopelessness  in 
advance;  they  were  used  to  rebuffs.  They  appealed  to  his 
pity.  Some  tried  corruption;  they  whispered  that  they 
would  "make  it  all  right,"  or  they  managed  a  sly  display 
of  money — one  a  one-dollar  bill  with  the  "  i "  folded  in, 
another  a  fifty-dollar  bill  with  the  "50"  well  to  the  fore. 
Some  grew  ugly  and  implied  favoritism;  they  were  the 
born  strikers  and  anarchists.  Even  though  they  looked 
rich,  they  had  that  habit  of  finding  oppression  and  con 
spiracy  everywhere.  A  few  women  appealed  to  his  phi 
lanthropy,  and  a  few  others  tried  to  play  the  siren.  But 
his  head  oscillated  from  side  to  side,  and  nobody  could 
swing  it  up  and  down. 

Marie  Louise  watched  the  procession  anxiously.  There 
seemed  to  be  no  end  to  it.  The  people  who  had  come  here 
first  had  been  turned  away  into  outer  darkness  long  ago 
and  had  gone  to  other  hotels.  The  present  wretches  were 
those  who  had  gone  to  the  other  hotels  first  and  made  this 
their  second,  third,  or  sixth  choice. 

Marie  Louise  did  not  go  to  the  desk.  She  could  take 
a  hint  at  second  hand.  She  would  have  been  glad  of  a 
place  to  sit  down,  but  all  the  divans  were  filled  with 
gossipers  very  much  at  home  and  somewhat  contemptuous 
of  the  vulgar  herd  trying  to  break  into  their  select  and 
long-established  circle.  She  heard  a  man  saying,  with  ami 
able  anger:  "Ah'm  mahty  sah'y  Ah  can't  put  you  up  at 
ouah  haouse,  but  we've  got  'em  hangin'  on  the  hat-rack 


THE    CUP    OF    FURY  9S 

in  the  hall.  You  infunnal  patriots  have  simply  ruined  this 
little  old  taown." 

She  heard  a  pleasant  laugh.  "Don't  worry.  I'll  get  along 
somehow." 

She  glanced  aside  and  saw  That  Man  again.  She  had  for 
gotten  his  name  again ;  yet  she  felt  curiously  less  lonely,  not 
nearly  so  hopeless.  The  other  man  said: 

"Say,  Davidge,  are  you  daown  heah  looking  for  one  of  these 
dollah-a-yeah  jobs?  Can  you  earn  it?" 

"I'm  not  looking  for  a  job.     I'm  looking  for  a  bed." 

"Not  a  chance.  The  government's  taken  ovah  half  the 
hotels  for  office-buildings." 

"I'll  go  to  a  Turkish  bath,  then." 

"Good  Lawd!  man,  I  hud  a  man  propose  that,  and  the 
hotel  clerk  said  he  had  telephoned  the  Tukkish  bath,  and  a 
man  theah  said:  'For  God's  sake  don't  send  anybody  else 
heah!  We've  got  five  hundred  cots  full  naow.' ' 

"There's  Baltimore." 

"Baltimer's  full  up.  So's  Alexandra.  Go  on  back  home 
and  write  a  letta." 

"I'll  try  a  few  more  hotels  first." 

"No  use — not  an  openin'." 

"Well,  I've  usually  found  that  the  best  place  to  look 
for  things  is  where  people  say  they  don't  grow." 

Marie  Louise  thought  that  this  was  most  excellent  advice. 
She  decided  to  follow  it  and  keep  on  trying. 

As  she  was  about  to  move  toward  the  door  the  elevator, 
like  a  great  cornucopia,  spilled  a  bevy  of  men  and  women 
into  the  lobby.  Leading  them  all  came  a  woman  of  charm, 
of  distinction,  of  self-possession.  She  was  smiling  over  one 
handsome  shoulder  at  a  British  officer. 

The  forlorn  Marie  Louise  saw  her,  and  her  eyes  rejoiced; 
her  face  was  kindled  with  haven-beacons.  She  pressed  for 
ward  with  her  hand  out,  and  though  she  only  murmured  the 
words,  a  cry  of  relief  thrilled  them. 

"Lady  Clifton-Wyatt!     What  luck  to  find  you!" 

Lady  Clifton-Wyatt  turned  with  a  smile  of  welcome  in 
advance.  Her  hand  went  forward.  Her  smile  ended  suddenly. 
Blank  amazement  passed  into  contemptuous  wrath.  Her 
hand  went  back.  With  the  disgust  of  a  sick  eagle  in  a  zoo, 
she  drew  a  film  over  her  eyes. 

7 


96  THE    CUP    OF    FURY 

The  smile  on  Marie  Louise's  face  also  hung  unsupported  for 
a  moment.  It  faded,  then  rallied.  She  spoke  with  patience, 
underlining  the  words  with  an  affectionate  reproof: 

"My  dear  Lady  Clifton-Wyatt,  I  am  Miss  Webling — 
Marie  Louise.  Don't  you  know  me?" 

Lady  Clifton-Wyatt  answered:    "I  did.     But  I  don't!" 

Then  she  turned  and  moved  toward  the  dining-room  door. 

The  head  waiter  bowed  with  deference  and  command  and 
beckoned  Lady  Clifton-Wyatt.  She  obeyed  him  with  meek 
hauteur. 


CHAPTER  II 

A?  she  came  out  of  the  first  hotel  of  her  selection  and 
rejection  Marie  Louise  asked  the  car-starter  the  name 
of  another.  He  mentioned  the  New  Willard. 

It  was  not  far,  and  she  was  there  before  she  had  time  to 
recover  from  the  staggering  effect  of  Lady  Clifton-Wyatt's 
bludgeon-like  snub.  As  timidly  as  the  waif  and  estray  that 
she  was,  she  ventured  into  the  crowded,  gorgeous  lobby 
with  its  lofty  and  ornate  ceiling  on  its  big  columns.  At 
one  side  a  long  corridor  ran  brokenly  up  a  steep  hill.  It 
was  populous  with  loungers  who  had  just  finished  their  din 
ners  or  were  waiting  for  a  chance  to  get  into  the  dining- 
rooms.  Orchestra  music  was  lilting  down  the  aisle. 

When  Marie  Louise  had  threaded  the  crowd  and  reached 
the  desk  a  very  polite  and  eager  clerk  asked  her  if  she  had 
a  reservation.  He  seemed  to  be  as  regretful  as  she  when  she 
said  no.  He  sighed,  "We've  turned  away  a  hundred  people 
in  the  last  two  hours." 

She  accepted  her  dismissal  dumbly,  then  paused  to  ask, 
"I  say,  do  you  by  any  chance  know  where  Grinden  Hall  is?" 

He  shook  his  head  and  turned  to  another  clerk  to  ask, 
"Do  you  know  of  a  hotel  here  named  Grinden  Hall?" 

The  other  shook  his  head,  too.  There  was  a  vast  amount 
of  head-shaking  going  on  everywhere  in  Washington.  He 
added,  "I'm  new  here."  Nearly  everybody  seemed  to  be 
new  here.  It  seemed  as  if  the  entire  populace  had  moved 
into  a  ready-made  town. 

Marie  Louise  had  barely  the  strength  to  explain,  "Grinden 
Hall  is  not  an  hotel;  it  is  a  home,  in  Rosslyn,  wherever  that  is." 

"Oh,  Rosslyn — that's  across  the  river  in  Virginia." 

"Do  you  know,  by  any  chance,  Major  Thomas  Widdi- 
combe?" 

He  shook  his  head.  Major  Widdicombe  was  a  big  man, 
but  the  town  was  fairly  swarming  with  men  bigger  than  he. 


98  THE    CUP   OF    FURY 

There  were  shoals  of  magnates,  but  giants  in  their  own  com 
munities  were  petty  nuisances  here  pleading  with  room- 
clerks  for  cots  and  with  head  waiters  for  bread.  The  lobby 
was  a  thicket  of  prominent  men  set  about  like  trees.  Sev 
eral  of  them  had  the  Congressional  look.  Later  history 
would  record  them  as  the  historic  statesmen  of  titanic  de 
bates,  men  by  whose  eloquence  and  leadership  and  committee- 
room  toil  the  Republic  would  be  revolutionized  in  nearly  every 
detail,  and  billions  made  to  flow  like  water. 

As  Marie  Louise  collected  her  porter  and  her  hand-luggage 
for  her  next  exit  she  saw  Ross  Davidge  just  coming  in. 
She  stepped  behind  a  large  politician  or  something.  She 
forgot  that  she  owed  Davidge  money,  and  she  felt  a  rather 
pleasurable  agitation  in  this  game  of  hide-and-seek,  but 
something  made  her  shy  of  Davidge.  For  one  thing,  it  was 
ludicrous  to  be  caught  being  turned  out  of  a  second  hotel. 

The  politician  walked  away,  and  Davidge  would  have  seen 
Marie  Louise  if  he  had  not  stopped  short  and  turned  a  cold 
shoulder  on  her,  just  as  the  distant  orchestra,  which  had  been 
crooning  one  of  Jerome  Kern's  most  insidiously  ingratiating 
melodies,  began  to  blare  with  all  its  might  the  sonorities  of 
"The  Star-spangled  Banner." 

Miss  Webling  saw  the  people  in  the  alley  getting  to  their 
feet  slowly,  awkwardly.  A  number  of  army  and  navy  offi 
cers  faced  the  music  and  stood  rigid  at  attention.  The 
civilians  in  the  lobby  who  were  already  standing  began  to 
pull  their  hats  off  sheepishly  like  embarrassed  peasants. 
People  were  still  as  self-conscious  as  if  the  song  had  just 
been  written.  They  would  soon  learn  to  feel  the  tremendous 
importance  of  that  eternal  query,  the  only  national  anthem, 
perhaps,  that  ever  began  with  a  question  and  ended  with  a 
prayer.  Americans  would  soon  learn  to  salute  it  with  eager 
ness  and  to  deal  ferociously  with  men — and  women,  too — 
who  were  slow  to  rise. 

Marie  Louise  watched  Davidge  curiously.  He  was  mani 
festly  on  fire  with  patriotism,  but  he  was  ashamed  to  show 
it,  ashamed  to  stand  erect  and  click  his  heels.  He  fumbled 
his  hat  and  slouched,  and  looked  as  if  he  had  been  caught 
in  some  guilt.  He  was  indeed  guilty  of  a  childish  fervor. 
He  wanted  to  shout,  he  wanted  to  weep,  he  wanted  to  fight 
somebody;  but  he  did  not  know  how  to  express  himself  with- 


THE    CUP   OF    FURY  99 

out  striking  an  attitude,  and  he  was  incapable  of  being  a 
poseur — except  as  an  American  posily  affects  poselessness. 

When  the  anthem  ended,  people  sank  into  their  chairs 
with  sighs  of  relief ;  the  officers  sharply  relaxed ;  the  civilians 
straightened  up  and  felt  at  home  again.  Ross  Davidge 
marched  to  the  desk,  not  noticing  Marie  Louise,  who  mo 
tioned  to  her  porter  to  come  along  with  her  luggage  and  went 
to  hunt  shelter  at  the  Raleigh  Hotel.  She  kept  her  taxi 
now  and  left  her  hand-baggage  in  it  while  she  received  the 
inevitable  rebuff.  From  there  she  traveled  to  hotel  after 
hotel,  marching  in  with  the  dismal  assurance  that  she  would 
march  right  out  again. 

The  taxi-driver  was  willing  to  take  her  to  hotels  as  long 
as  they  and  her  money  lasted.  Her  strength  and  her  pa 
tience  gave  out  first.  At  the  Lafayette  she  advanced  wearily, 
disconsolately  to  the  desk.  She  saw  Ross  Davidge  stretched 
out  in  a  big  chair.  He  did  not  see  her.  His  hat  was  pulled 
over  his  eyes,  and  he  had  the  air  of  angry  failure.  If  he 
despaired,  what  chance  had  she? 

She  received  the  usual  regrets  from  the  clerk.  As  she  left 
the  desk  the  floor  began  to  wabble.  She  hurried  to  an  inviting 
divan  and  dropped  down,  beaten  and  distraught.  She  heard 
some  one  approach,  and  her  downcast  eyes  saw  a  pair  of  feet 
move  up  and  halt  before  her. 

Since  Lady  Clifton-Wyatt's  searing  glance  and  words  Marie 
Louise  had  felt  branded  visibly,  and  unworthy  of  human 
kindness  and  shelter.  She  was  piteously  grateful  to  this  man 
for  his  condescension  in  saying: 

"You'll  have  to  excuse  me  for  bothering  you  again.  But 
I'm  afraid  you're  in  worse  trouble  than  I  am.  Nobody 
seems  to  be  willing  to  take  you  in." 

He  meant  this  as  a  light  jocularity,  but  it  gave  her  a  mo 
ment's  serious  fear  that  he  had  overheard  Lady  Clifton- 
Wyatt's  slashing  remark.  But  he  went  on: 

"Won't  you  allow  me  to  try  to  find  you  a  place?  Don't 
you  know  anybody  here?" 

"I  know  numbers  of  people,  but  I  don't  know  where  any 
of  them  are." 

She  told  him  of  her  efforts  to  get  to  Rosslyn  by  telephone, 
by  telegraph,  by  train  or  taxicab.  Little  tears  added  a  sparkle 
to  laughter,  but  threatened  rain.  She  ended  with,  "And 


ioo  THE    CUP   OF    FURY 

now  that  I've  unloaded  my  riddles  on  you,  aren't  you  sorry 
you  spoke?" 

"Not  yet,"  he  said,  with  a  subtle  compliment  pleasantly 
implying  that  she  was  perilous.  Everybody  likes  to  be  thought 
perilous.  He  went  on:  "I  don't  know  Rosslyn,  but  it  can't 
be  much  of  a  place  for  size.  If  you  have  a  friend  there,  we'll 
find  her  if  we  have  to  go  to  every  house  in  Rosslyn." 

"But  it's  getting  rather  late,  isn't  it,  to  be  knocking  at  all 
the  doors  all  by  myself?" 

She  had  not  meant  to  hint,  and  it  was  a  mere  coincidence 
that  he  thought  to  say : 

"Couldn't  I  go  along?" 

"Thank  you,  but  it's  out  in  the  country  rather  far,  I'm 
afraid." 

"Then  I  must  go  along. 

"I  couldn't  think  of  troubling  you." 

The  end  of  it  was  that  he  had  his  way,  or  she  hers,  or 
both  theirs.  He  made  no  nonsense  of  adventure  or  esca 
pade  about  it,  and  she  was  too  well  used  to  traveling  alone 
to  feel  ashamed  or  alarmed.  He  led  her  to  the  taxi,  told 
the  driver  that  Grinden  Hall  was  their  objective  and  must  be 
found.  Then  he  climbed  in  with  her,  and  they  rode  in  a  dark 
broken  with  the  fitful  lightnings  of  street-lamps  and  motors. 

The  taxi  glided  out  M  Street.  The  little  shops  of  George 
town  went  sidelong  by.  The  cab  turned  abruptly  to  the  left 
and  clattered  across  the  old  aqueduct  bridge.  On  a  broad 
reach  of  the  Potomac  the  new-risen  moon  spread  a  vast  sheet 
of  tin-foil  of  a  crinkled  sheen.  This  was  all  that  was  beautiful 
about  the  sordid  neighborhood,  but  it  was  very  beautiful, 
and  tender  to  a  strange  degree. 

Once  across,  the  driver  stopped  and  leaned  round  to  call 
in  at  the  door: 

"This  is  Rosslyn.    Where  do  yew-all  want  to  go  next?" 

"Grinden  Hall.    Ask  somebody." 

"Ask  who?    They  ain't  a  soul  tew  be  saw." 

They  waited  in  the  dark  awhile;  then  Davidge  got  out 
and,  seeing  a  street-car  coming  down  through  the  hills  like 
a  dragon  in  fiery  scales,  he  stopped  it  to  ask  the  motorman 
of  Grinden  Hall.  He  knew  nothing,  but  a  sleepy  passenger 
said  that  he  reckoned  that  that  was  the  fancy  name  of  Mr. 
Sawtell's  place,  and  he  shouted  the  directions: 


THE    CUP   OF    FURY  101 

"Yew  go  raht  along  this  road  ovah  the  caw  tracks,  and 
unda  a  bridge  and  keep  a-goin'  up  a  ridge  and  ova  till  yew 
come  to  a  shawp  tu'n  to  the  raht.  Big  whaht  mansion, 
ain't  it?" 

"I  don't  know,"  said  Davidge.     "I  never  saw  it." 

"Well,  I  reckon  that's  the  place.  Only  'Hall'  I  knaow 
about  up  heah." 

The  motorman  kicked  his  bell  and  started  off. 

"Nothing  like  trying,"  said  Davidge,  and  clambered  in. 
The  taxicab  went  veering  and  yawing  over  an  unusually 
Virginian  bad  road.  After  a  little  they  entered  a  forest.  The 
driver  threw  on  his  search-light,  and  it  tore  from  the  darkness 
pictures  of  forest  eerily  green  in  the  glare — old  trees  slanting 
out,  deep  channels  blackening  into  mysterious  glades.  The 
car  swung  sharply  to  the  right  and  growled  up  a  hill,  curving 
and  swirling  and  threatening  to  capsize  at  every  moment. 
The  sense  of  being  lost  was  irresistible. 

Marie  Louise  fell  to  pondering;  suddenly  she  grew  afraid 
to  find  Grinden  Hall.  She  knew  that  Polly  knew  Lady  Clifton- 
Wyatt.  They  might  have  met  since  Polly  wrote  that  letter. 
Lady  Clifton- Wyatt  had  perhaps — had  doubtless — told  Polly 
all  about  Marie  Louise.  Polly  would  probably  refuse  her 
shelter.  She  knew  Polly:  there  was  no  middle  ground  be 
tween  her  likes  and  dislikes;  she  doted  or  she  hated.  She 
was  capable  of  smothering  her  friends  with  affection  and  of 
making  them  ancient  enemies  in  an  instant.  For  her  enemies 
she  had  no  use  or  tolerance.  She  let  them  know  her  wrath. 

The  car  stopped.  The  driver  got  down  and  went  forward 
to  a  narrow  lane  opening  from  the  narrow  road.  There  was 
a  sign-board  there.  He  read  it  by  the  light  of  the  moon  and 
a  few  matches.  He  came  back  and  said : 

"Here  she  is.  Grinden  Hall  is  what  she  says  on  that  theah 
sign-bode." 

Marie  Louise  was  in  a  flutter.  "What  time  is  it?"  she 
asked. 

Davidge  held  his  watch  up  and  lighted  a  match. 

"A  little  after  one." 

"It's  awfully  late,"  she  said. 

The  car  was  turning  at  right  angles  now,  and  following  a 
narrow  track  curling  through  a  lawn  studded  with  shrubbery. 
There  was  a  moment's  view  of  all  Washington  beyond  the 


102  THE    CUP   OF    FURY 

valley  of  the  moon-illumined  river.  Its  lights  gleamed  in  a 
patient  vigilance.  It  had  the  look  of  the  holy  city  that  it  is. 
The  Capitol  was  like  a  mosque  in  Mecca,  the  Mecca  of  the 
faithful  who  believe  in  freedom  and  equality.  The  Washing 
ton  Monument,  picked  out  from  the  dark  by  a  search-light, 
was  a  lofty  steeple  in  a  dream-world. 

Davidge  caught  a  quick  breath  of  piety  and  reverence. 
Marie  Louise  was  too  frightened  by  her  own  destiny  to  think 
of  the  world's  anxieties. 

The  car  raced  round  the  circular  road.  Her  eyes  were 
snatched  from  the  drowsy  town,  small  with  distance,  to  the 
imminent  majesty  of  a  great  Colonial  portico  with  columns 
tall  and  stately  and  white,  a  temple  of  Parthenonian  dignity 
in  the  radiance  of  the  priestly  moon.  There  was  not  a  light 
in  any  window,  no  sign  of  life. 

The  car  stopped.  But — Marie  Louise  simply  dared  not 
face  Polly  and  risk  a  scene  in  the  presence  of  Davidge.  She 
tapped  on  the  glass  and  motioned  the  driver  to  go  on.  He 
could  not  believe  her  gestures.  She  leaned  out  and  whispered : 

"Go  on — go  on!    I'll  not  stop!" 

Davidge  was  puzzled,  but  he  said  nothing;  and  Marie 
Louise  made  no  explanation  till  they  were  outside  again, 
and  then  she  said: 

"Do  you  think  I'm  insane?" 

"This  is  not  my  party,"  he  said. 

She  tried  to  explain:  "There  wasn't  a  light  to  be  seen. 
They  couldn't  have  got  my  telegram.  They  weren't  expecting 
me.  They  may  not  have  been  at  home.  I  hadn't  the  courage 
to  stop  and  wake  the  house." 

That  was  not  her  real  reason,  but  Davidge  asked  for  no 
other.  If  he  noted  that  she  was  strangely  excited  over  a 
trifle  like  getting  a  few  servants  and  a  hostess  out  of  bed,  he 
made  no  comment. 

When  she  pleaded,  "Do  you  mind  if  I  go  back  to  Washington 
with  you?"  he  chuckled:  "It's  certainly  better  than  going 
alone.  But  what  will  you  do  when  you  get  there?" 

"I'll  go  to  the  railroad  station  and  sit  up,"  Marie  Louise 
announced.  "I'm  no  end  sorry  to  have  been  such  a  nuisance." 

"Nuisance!"  he  protested,  and  left  his  intonation  to  convey 
all  the  compliments  he  dared  not  utter. 

The  cab  dived  into  another  woods  and  ran  clattering  down 


THE    CUP   OF    FURY  103 

a  roving  hill  road.  Up  the  opposite  steep  it  went  with  a 
weary  gait.  It  crawled  to  the  top  with  turtle-like  labor. 
Davidge  knew  the  symptoms,  and  he  frowned  in  the  shadow, 
yet  smiled  a  little. 

The  car  went  banging  down,  held  by  a  squealing  brake. 
The  light  grew  faint,  and  in  the  glimmer  there  was  a  close 
shave  at  the  edge  of  a  hazardous  bridge  over  a  deep,  deep 
ravine.  The  cab  rolled  forward  on  the  rough  planks  under  its 
impetus,  but  it  picked  up  no  speed.  Half-way  across,  it 
stopped. 

"Whatever  is  the  matter?"  Marie  Louise  exclaimed. 

Davidge  leaned  out  and  called  to  the  driver,  "What's  the 
matter  now?"  though  he  knew  full  well. 

"Gas  is  gone,  I  reckon,"  the  fellow  snarled,  as  he  got  down. 
After  a  moment's  examination  he  confirmed  his  diagnosis. 
"Yep,  gas  is  all  gone.  I  been  on  the  go  too  long  on  this  one 
call." 

"In  Heaven's  name,  where  can  you  get  some  more  gaso 
lene?"  said  Marie  Louise. 

"Nearest  garodge  is  at  Rosslyn,  I  reckon,  lady." 

"How  far  is  that?" 

"I'd  hate  to  say,  lady.  Three,  fo'  mahls,  most  lahkly,  and 
prob'ly  closed  naow." 

"Go  wake  it  up  at  once." 

"No  thanky,  lady.     I  got  mahty  po'  feet  for  them  hills." 

"What  do  you  propose  to  do?" 

"Ain't  nothin'  tew  dew  but  wait  fo'  somebody  to  come 
along." 

"When  will  that  be?" 

"Along  todes  mawnin'  they  ought  to  be  somebody  along, 
milkman  or  somethin'." 

"Cheerful!"  said  Marie  Louise. 

"Batt'ries  kind  o'  sick,  tew,  looks  lahk.  I  was  engaged 
by  the  houah,  remember,"  the  driver  reminded  them  as  he 
clambered  back  to  his  place,  put  his  feet  up  on  the  dashboard 
and  let  his  head  roll  into  a  position  of  ease. 

The  dimming  lights  waned  and  did  not  wax.  By  and  by 
they  went  where  lights  go  when  they  go  out.  There  was  no 
light  now  except  the  moonset,  shimmering  mistily  across  the 
tree-tops  of  the  rotunda  of  the  forest,  just  enough  to  emphasize 
the  black  of  the  well  they  were  in. 


CHAPTER  III 

HOW  would  she  take  it? 
That    was    what    interested    Davidge    most.      What 
was  she  really  like?     And  what  would  she  do  with  this  in 
tractable  situation?    What  would  the  situation  do  with  her? 
For  situations  make  people  as  well  as  people  situations. 

Now  was  the  time  for  an  acquaintance  of  souls.  An 
almost  absolute  dark  erased  them  from  each  other's  sight. 
Their  eyes  were  as  useless  as  the  useless  eyes  of  fish  in  sub- 
terrene  caverns.  Miss  Webling  could  have  told  Davidge 
the  color  of  his  eyes,  of  course,  being  a  woman.  But  being  a 
man,  he  could  not  remember  the  color  of  hers,  because  he  had 
noted  nothing  about  her  eyes  except  that  they  were  very 
eye-ish. 

He  would  have  blundered  ridiculously  in  describing  her 
appearance.  His  information  of  her  character  was  all  to  gain. 
He  had  seen  her  wandering  about  Washington  homeless 
among  the  crowds  and  turned  from  every  door.  She  had 
borne  the  ordeal  as  well  as  could  be  asked.  She  had  accepted 
his  proffer  of  protection  with  neither  terror  nor  assurance. 

He  supposed  that  in  a  similar  plight  the  old-fashioned 
woman — or  at  least  the  ubiquitous  woman  of  the  special 
eternal  type  that  fictionists  call  "old-fashioned" — would  have 
been  either  a  bleating,  tremulous  gazelle  or  a  brazen  siren. 
But  Miss  Webling  behaved  like  neither  of  these.  She  took 
his  gallantry  with  a  matter-of-fact  reasonableness,  much  as  a 
man  would  accept  the  offer  of  another  man's  companionship 
on  a  tiresome  journey.  She  gave  none  of  those  multitudinous 
little  signals  by  which  a  woman  indicates  that  she  is  either 
afraid  that  a  man  will  try  to  hug  her  or  afraid  that  he  will 
not.  She  was  apparently  planning  neither  to  flirt  nor  to  faint. 

Davidge  asked  in  a  matter-of-fact  tone:  "Do  you  think 
you  could  walk  to  town?  The  driver  says  it's  only  three-fo' 
miles." 


THE    CUP    OF    FURY  105 

She  sighed :  "  My  feet  would  never  make  it.  And  I  have  on 
high-heeled  boots." 

His  "Too  bad!"  conveyed  more  sympathy  than  she  ex 
pected.  He  had  another  suggestion. 

"You  could  probably  get  back  to  the  home  of  Mrs.  Widdi- 
combe.  That  isn't  so  far  away." 

She  answered,  bluntly,  "I  shouldn't  think  of  it!" 

He  made  another  proposal  without  much  enthusiasm. 

"Then  I'd  better  walk  in  to  Washington  and  get  a  cab 
and  come  back  for  you." 

She  was  even  blunter  about  this:  "I  shouldn't  dream  of 
that.  You're  a  wreck,  too." 

He  lied  pluckily,  "Oh,  I  shouldn't  mind." 

"Well,  I  should!  And  I  don't  fancy  the  thought  of  staying 
here  alone  with  that  driver." 

He  smiled  in  the  dark  at  the  double-edged  compliment  of 
implying  that  she  was  safer  with  him  than  with  the  driver. 
But  she  did  not  hear  his  smile. 

She  apologized,  meekly:  "I've  got  you  into  an  awful  mess, 
haven't  I?  I  usually  do  make  a  mess  of  everything  I  under 
take.  You'd  better  beware  of  me  after  this." 

His  "I'll  risk  it"  was  a  whole  cyclopedia  of  condensed 
gallantry. 

They  sat  inept  for  a  time,  thinking  aimlessly,  seeing  nothing, 
hearing  only  the  bated  breath  of  the  night  wind  groping 
stealthily  through  the  tree-tops,  and  from  far  beneath,  the 
still ,  small  voice  of  a  brook  feeling  its  way  down  its  unlighted 
stairs. 

At  last  her  voice  murmured,  "Are  you  quite  too  horribly 
uncomfortable  for  words?" 

His  voice  was  a  deep-toned  bell  somehow  articulate:  "I 
couldn't  be  more  comfortable  except  for  one  thing.  I'm  all 
out  of  cigars." 

"  Oh !"  He  had  a  vague  sense  of  her  mental  struggle  before 
she  spoke  again,  timidly: 

"I  fancy  you  don't  smoke  cigarettes?" 

"When  I  can't  get  cigars ;  any  tobacco  is  better  than  none." 

Another  blank  of  troubled  silence,  then,  "I  wonder  if  you'd 
say  that  of  mine." 

Her  voice  was  both  defiant  and  trepidate.  He  laughed. 
"I'll  guarantee  to." 


io6  THE    CUP   OF    FURY 

A  few  years  before  he  would  have  accepted  a  woman's 
confession  that  she  smoked  cigarettes  as  a  confession  of 
complete  abandonment  to  all  the  other  vices.  A  few  years 
farther  back,  indeed,  and  he  would  have  said  that  any  man 
who  smoked  cigarettes  was  worthless.  Since  then  he  had  seen 
so  many  burly  heroes  and  so  many  unimpeachable  ladies 
smoke  them  that  he  had  almost  forgotten  his  old  prejudice. 
In  some  of  the  United  States  it  was  then  against  the  law  for 
men  (not  to  say  women  and  children)  to  sell  or  give  away  or 
even  to  possess  cigarettes.  After  the  war  crusades  would 
start  against  all  forms  of  tobacco,  and  at  least  one  clergyman 
would  call  every  man  who  smoked  cigarettes  a  "drug-addict." 
It  is  impossible  for  anybody  to  be  moral  enough  not  to  be 
immoral  to  somebody. 

But  intolerances  go  out  of  style  as  suddenly  as  new  creeds 
come  in.  He  knew  soldiers  who  held  a  lighted  stub  in  one 
hand  while  they  rolled  a  cigarette  with  the  other.  He  knew 
Red  Cross  saints  who  could  puff  a  forbidden  cigarette  like 
a  prayer.  He  wondered  how  he  or  any  one  had  ever  made 
such  a  fierce  taboo  of  a  wisp  of  aromatic  leaves  kindled  in  a 
tiny  parcel.  Such  strange  things  people  choose  for  their  tests 
of  virtue — tests  that  have  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  the 
case,  whether  savage  or  civilized  folk  invent  them. 

He  heard  Miss  Webling  fumbling  in  a  hand-bag.  He  heard 
the  click  of  her  rings  against  metal.  He  heard  the  little 
noise  of  the  portals  of  a  cigarette-case  opening.  His  hands 
and  hers  stumbled  together,  and  his  ringers  selected  a  little 
cylinder  from  the  row. 

He  produced  a  match  and  held  the  flame  before  her.  He 
filled  his  eyes  with  her  vivid  features  as  the  glow  detached 
her  from  the  dark.  Of  her  eyes  he  saw  only  the  big  lids, 
but  he  noted  her  lips,  pursed  a  trifle  with  the  kissing  muscles, 
and  he  sighed  as  she  blew  a  smoke  about  her  like  a  goddess 
creating  a  cloud  of  vanishment.  He  lighted  his  own  cigarette 
and  threw  the  match  away.  They  returned  to  a  perfect 
gloom  mitigated  by  the  slight  increase  and  decrease  in  the 
vividness  of  their  tobacco-tips  as  they  puffed. 

She  was  the  first  to  speak: 

"I  have  a  whole  box  of  fags  in  my  hand-bag.  I  usually 
have  a  good  supply.  When  you  want  another —  Does  it  hor 
rify  you  to  see  a  woman  smoke?" 


THE    CUP   OF    FURY  107 

He  was  very  superior  to  his  old  bigotry.  "Quite  the. 
contrary!" 

This  was  hardly  honest  enough,  so  he  said: 

"It  did  once,  though.  I  remember  how  startled  I  was 
years  ago  when  I  was  in  England  and  I  saw  ladies  smoking 
in  hotel  corridors;  and  on  the  steamer  coming  back,  there 
was  a  countess  or  something  who  sat  in  the  balcony  and 
puffed  away.  Of  course,  at  the  big  dinners  in  London  they 
smoked,  too.  They  did  at  Sir  Joseph's,  I  remember." 

He  did  not  see  her  wince  at  this  name. 

"There  were  some  odd  fish  surrounding  old  Sir  Joseph. 
Some  of  them  I  couldn't  quite  make  out.  He  was  just  a 
little  hard  to  get  at,  himself.  I  got  very  huffy  at  the  old 
boy  once  or  twice,  I'm  sorry  to  say.  It  was  about  ships. 
I'm  a  crank  on  ships.  Everybody  has  at  least  one  mania. 
That's  mine — ships.  Sir  Joseph  and  I  quarreled  about  them. 
He  wanted  to  buy  all  I  could  make,  but  he  was  in  no  hurry 
to  have  'em  finished.  I  told  him  he  talked  more  like  a 
German  trying  to  stop  production  than  like  a  Britisher  trying 
to  speed  it  up.  That  made  him  huffy.  I'm  sorry  I  did  him 
such  an  injustice.  When  you  insult  a  man,  and  he  dies — 
What  a  terrible  repartee  dying  is !  He  had  offered  me  a  big 
price,  too,  but  it's  not  money  I  want  to  make;  it's  ships. 
And  I  want  to  see  'em  at  work.  Did  you  ever  see  a  ship 
launched?" 

"No,  I  never  did." 

"There's  nothing  prettier.  Come  over  to  my  shipyard  and 
I'll  show  you.  We're  going  to  put  one  over  before  long. 
I'll  let  you  christen  her." 

"That  would  be  wonderful." 

"It's  better  than  that.  The  civilized  world  is  starting  out 
on  the  most  poetic  job  it  ever  undertook." 

"Indeed?" 

"Yep.  The  German  sharks  are  gradually  dragging  all  our 
shipping  under  water.  The  inventors  don't  seem  able  to 
devise  any  cure  for  the  submarines  except  to  find  'em  and 
fight  'em.  They're  hard  to  find,  and  they  won't  fight.  But 
they  keep  popping  up  and  stabbing  our  pretty  ships  to  death. 
And  now  the  great  game  is  on,  the  greatest  game  that  civilized 
men  ever  fought  with  hell." 

"What's  that?" 


IDS  THE    CUP   OF    FURY 

"We're  going  to  try  to  build  ships  faster  than  the  Hun 
can  sink  'em.  Isn't  that  a  glorious  job  for  you?  Was  there 
ever  a — well,  a  nobler  idea?  We  can't  kill  the  beast;  so 
we're  going  to  choke  him  to  death  with  food."  He  laughed 
to  hide  his  embarrassing  exaltation. 

She  was  not  afraid  of  it:  "It  is  rather  a  stupendous  in 
spiration,  isn't  it?" 

"Who  was  it  said  he'd  rather  have  written  Gray's  'Elegy' 
than  taken  Quebec?  I'd  rather  have  thought  up  this  thought 
than  written  the  Iliad.  Nobody  knows  who  invented  the 
idea.  He's  gone  to  oblivion  already,  but  he  has  done  more 
for  the  salvation  of  freedom  than  all  the  poets  of  time." 

This  shocked  her,  yet  thrilled  her  with  its  loftiness.  She 
thrilled  to  him  suddenly,  too.  She  saw  that  she  was  within 
the  aura  of  a  fiery  spirit — a  business  man  aflame.  And 
she  saw  in  a  white  light  that  the  builders  of  things,  even 
of  perishable  things,  are  as  great  as  the  weavers  of  immortal 
words — not  so  well  remembered,  of  course,  for  posterity  has 
only  the  words.  Poets  and  highbrows  scorn  them,  but 
living  women  who  can  see  the  living  men  are  not  so  foolish. 
They  are  apt  to  prefer  the  maker  to  the  writer.  They  re 
ward  the  poet  with  a  smile  and  a  compliment,  but  give  their 
lives  to  the  manufacturers,  the  machinists,  the  merchants. 
Then  the  neglected  poets  and  their  toadies  the  critics  grow 
sarcastic  about  this  and  think  that  they  have  condemned 
women  for  materialism  when  they  are  themselves  blind  to 
its  grandeur.  They  ignore  the  divinity  that  attends  the 
mining  and  smelting  and  welding  and  selling  of  iron  things, 
the  hewing  and  sawing  and  planing  of  woods,  the  sowing 
and  reaping  and  distribution  of  foods.  They  make  a  priest 
craft  and  a  ritual  of  artful  language,  and  are  ignorant  of  their 
own  heresy.  But  since  they  deal  in  words,  they  have  a  fear 
ful  advantage  and  use  it  for  their  own  glorification,  as  priests 
are  wont  to  do. 

Marie  Louise  had  a  vague  insight  into  the  truth,  but  was 
not  aware  of  her  own  wisdom.  She  knew  only  that  this 
Davidge  who  had  made  himself  her  gallant,  her  messenger 
and  servant,  was  really  a  genius,  a  giant.  She  felt  that  the 
roles  should  be  reversed  and  she  should  be  waiting  upon 
him. 

In  Sir  Joseph's  house  there  nad  been  a  bit  of  statuary 


THE    CUP   OF    FURY  109 

representing  Hercules  and  Omphale.  The  mighty  one  was 
wearing  the  woman's  kirtle  and  carrying  her  distaff,  and 
the  girl  was  staggering  under  the  lion-skin  and  leaning  on 
the  bludgeon.  Marie  Louise  always  hated  the  group.  It 
seemed  to  her  to  represent  just  the  way  so  many  women 
tried  to  master  the  men  they  infatuated.  But  Marie  Louise 
despised  masterable  men,  and  she  had  no  wish  to  make  a  toy 
of  one.  Yet  she  had  wondered  if  a  man  and  a  woman  could 
not  love  each  other  more  perfectly  if  neither  were  master  or 
mistress,  but  both  on  a  parity — a  team,  indeed. 

Davidge  enjoyed  talking  to  her,  at  least.  That  comforted 
her.  When  she  came  back  from  her  meditations  he  was  saying : 

"My  company  is  reaching  out.  We've  bought  a  big  tract 
of  swamp,  and  we're  filling  it  in  and  clearing  it,  and  we're 
going  to  lay  out  a  shipyard  there  and  turn  out  ships — stand 
ardized  ships — as  fast  as  we  can.  We're  steadying  the 
ground  first,  sinking  concrete  piles  in  steel  casing — if  you  put 
'em  end  to  end,  they'd  reach  twenty-five  miles.  They're 
just  to  hold  the  ground  together.  That's  what  the  whole 
country  has  got  to  do  before  it  can  really  begin  to  begin — 
put  some  solid  ground  under  its  feet.  When  the  ship  is 
launched  she  mustn't  stick  on  the  ways  or  in  the  mud. 

"Of  course,  I'd  rather  go  as  a  soldier,  but  I've  got  no  right 
to.  I  can  ride  or  walk  all  day,  and  shoot  straight  and  stand 
all  kinds  of  weather,  and  killing  Germans  would  just  about 
tickle  me  to  death.  But  this  is  a  time  when  every  man 
has  got  to  do  what  he  can  do  better  than  he  can  do  anything 
else.  And  I've  spent  my  life  in  shipyards. 

"I  was  a  common  laborer  first — swinging  a  sledge;  I  had 
an  arm  then!  That  was  before  we  had  compressed-air 
riveters.  I  was  a  union  man  and  went  on  strike  and  fought 
scabs  and  made  the  bosses  eat  crow.  Now  I'm  one  of  the 
bosses.  I'm  what  they  call  a  capitalist  and  an  oppressor 
of  labor.  Now  I  put  down  strikes  and  fight  the  unions — not 
that  I  don't  believe  in  'em,  not  that  I  don't  know  where 
labor  was  before  they  had  unions  and  where  it  would  be 
without  'em  to-day  and  to-morrow,  but  because  all  these 
things  have  to  be  adjusted  gradually,  and  because  the  main 
thing,  after  all,  is  building  ships— just  now,  of  course,  especially. 

"When  I  was  a  workman  I  took  pride  in  my  job,  and  I 
thought  I  was  an  artist  at  it.  I  wouldn't  take  anybody's 


no  THE    CUP   OF    FURY 

lip.  Now  that  I'm  a  boss  I  have  to  take  everybody's  lip, 
because  I  can't  strike.  I  can't  go  to  my  boss  and  demand 
higher  wages  and  easier  hours,  because  my  boss  is  the  market. 
But  I  don't  suppose  there's  anything  on  earth  that  interests 
you  less  than  labor  problems." 

"They  might  if  I  knew  the  first  thing  about  them." 

"Well,  the  first  thing  is  that  they  are  the  next  war,  the  big 
war  after  this  one's  over.  The  job  is  to  keep  it  down  till  peace 
comes.  Then  hell  will  pop — if  you'll  pardon  my  French. 
I'm  all  for  labor  getting  its  rights,  but  some  of  the  men 
don't  want  the  right  to  work — they  want  the  right  to  loaf. 
I  say  let  the  sky  be  the  limit  of  any  man's  opportunity — the 
sky  and  his  own  limitations  and  ambitions.  But  a  lot  of  the 
workmen  don't  want  opportunity;  they've  got  no  ambition; 
they  hate  to  build  things.  They  talk  about  the  terrible 
conditions  their  families  live  in,  and  how  gorgeously  the 
rich  men  live.  But  the  rich  men  were  poor  once,  and  the 
poor  can  be  rich — if  they  can  and  will. 

"The  war  is  going  to  be  the  fight  between  the  makers  and 
the  breakers,  the  uplifters  and  the  down-draggers,  you  might 
say.  And  it's  going  to  be  some  war! 

"The  men  on  the  wrong  side — what  I  call  the  wrong  side, 
at  least — are  just  as  much  our  enemies  as  the  Germans. 
We've  got  to  watch  'em  just  as  close.  They'd  just  as  soon 
burn  an  unfinished  ship  as  the  Germans  would  sink  her  when 
she's  on  her  way. 

"That  little  ship  I'm  building  now!  Would  you  believe  it? 
It  has  to  be  guarded  every  minute.  Most  of  our  men  are  all 
right.  They'd  work  themselves  to  death  for  the  ship,  and 
they  pour  out  their  sweat  like  prayers.  But  sneaks  get  in 
among  'em,  and  it  only  takes  a  fellow  with  a  bomb  one  minute 
to  undo  the  six  months'  work  of  a  hundred." 

"Tell  me  about  your  ship,"  she  said. 

A  ship  she  could  understand.  It  was  personal  and  real; 
labor  theories  were  as  foreign  to  her  as  problems  in  meta 
physics. 

"Well,  it's  my  first-born,  this  ship,"  he  said.  "Of  course 
I've  built  a  lot  of  other  ships,  but  they  were  for  other  people — 
just  jobs,  for  wages  or  commissions.  This  one  is  all  my 
own — a  freighter,  ugly  as  sin  and  commodious  as  hell — I 
beg  your  pardon!  But  the  world  needs  freighters — the 


THE   CUP   OF   FURY  in 

hungry  mobs  of  Europe,  they  '11  be  glad  to  see  my  little  ship 
come  in,  if  ever  she  does.  If  she  doesn't  I'll —  But  she'll 
last  a  few  trips  before  they  submarine  her — I  guess." 

He  fell  silent  among  his  visions  and  left  her  to  her  own. 

He  saw  himself  wandering  about  a  shipyard,  a  poor  thing, 
but  his  own.  His  mind  was  like  a  mold-loft  full  of  designs 
and  detail-drawings  to  scale,  blue-prints  and  models.  On  the 
way  a  ship  was  growing  for  him.  As  yet  she  was  a  ghastly 
thing  all  ribs,  like  the  skeleton  of  some  ancient  sea-monster 
left  ashore  at  high  tide  and  perished  eons  back,  leaving  only 
the  bones. 

His  fancy  saw  her  transverses  taking  on  their  iron  flesh. 
He  saw  the  day  of  her  nativity.  He  heard  them  knock  out 
the  blocks  that  lowered  the  sliding-ways  to  the  groundways 
and  sent  her  swirling  into  the  sea. 

He  saw  her  ready  for  her  cargo,  saw  a  Niagara  of  wheat 
cascading  into  her  hold.  He  saw  her  go  forth  into  the  sea. 

Then  he  saw  the  ship  stagger,  a  wound  opened  in  her  side, 
from  the  bullet  of  a  submarine. 

It  was  all  so  vivid  that  he  spoke  aloud  in  a  frenzy  of  ire : 

"If  the  Germans  kill  my  ship  I'll  kill  a  German'  By 
God,  I  will!" 

He  was  startled  by  the  sound  of  his  own  voice,  and  he 
begged  her  pardon  humbly. 

She  had  been  away  in  reverie,  too.  The  word  "submarine" 
had  sent  her  back  into  her  haunting  remembrances  of  the 
Lusitania  and  of  her  own  helpless  entanglement  in  the  fate 
of  other  ships — their  names  as  unknown  to  her  as  the  names 
and  faces  of  the  men  that  died  with  them,  or  perished  of 
starvation  and  thirst  in  the  lifeboats  sent  adrift.  The  thought 
of  these  poor  anonymities  frightened  her.  She  shuddered 
with  such  violence  that  Davidge  was  startled  from  his  own 
wrath. 

"You're  having  a  chill,"  he  said.  "I  wish  you  would  take 
my  coat.  You  don't  want  to  get  sick." 

She  shook  her  head  and  chattered,  "No,  no." 

"Then  you'd  better  get  out  and  walk  up  and  down  this 
bridge  awhile.  There's  not  even  a  lap-robe  here." 

"I  should  like  to  walk,  I  think." 

She  stepped  out,  aided  by  his  hand,  a  strong  hand,  and 
warm  about  her  icy  fingers.  Her  knees  were  weak,  and  he 


ii2  THE    CUP   OF    FURY 

set  her  elbow  in  the  hollow  of  his  arm  and  guided  her.7"  They 
walked  like  the  blind  leading  the  blind  through  a  sea  of 
pitch.  The  only  glimmer  was  the  little  scratches  of  light 
pinked  in  the  dead  sky  by  a  few  stars. 

'"It's  beautiful  overhead,  if  you're  going  that  way,'" 
Davidge  quoted. 

He  set  out  briskly,  but  Marie  Louise  hung  back  timidly. 

"Not  so  fast!     I  can't  see  a  thing." 

"That's  the  best  time  to  keep  moving." 

"But  aren't  you  afraid  to  push  on  when  you  can't  see 
where  you're  going?"  she  demanded. 

"Who  can  ever  tell  where  he's  going?  The  sunlight  is  no 
guaranty.  We're  all  bats  in  the  daytime  and  not  cats  at 
night.  The  main  thing  is  to  sail  on  and  on  and  on." 

She  caught  a  little  of  his  recklessness — suffered  him  to 
hurry  her  to  and  fro  through  the  inky  air  till  she  was  panting 
for  breath  and  tired.  Then  they  groped  to  the  rail  and  peered 
vainly  down  at  the  brook,  which,  like  an  unbroken  child, 
was  heard  and  not  seen.  They  leaned  their  elbows  on  the  rail 
and  stared  into  the  muffling  gloom. 

"I  think  I'll  have  another  of  your  cigarettes,"  he  said. 

"So  will  I,"  said  she. 

There  was  a  cozy  fireside  moment  as  they  took  their  lights 
from  the  same  match.  When  he  threw  the  match  overboard 
he  said : 

"Like  a  human  life,  eh?  A  little  spark  between  dark  and 
dark." 

He  was  surprised  at  stumbling  into  rhyme,  and  apologized. 
But  she  said: 

"Do  you  know,  I  rather  like  that.  It  reminds  me  of  a 
poem  about  a  rain-storm — Russell  Lowell's,  I  fancy;  it  told 
of  a  flock  of  sheep  scampering  down  a  dusty  road  and  clatter 
ing  across  a  bridge  and  back  to  the  dust  again.  He  said  it 
was  like  human  life,  'a  little  noise  between  two  silences.'" 

"H'm!"  was  the  best  Davidge  could  do.  But  the  agony 
of  the  brevity  of  existence  seized  them  both  by  the  hearts, 
and  their  hearts  throbbed  and  bled  like  birds  crushed  in  the 
claws  of  hawks.  Their  hearts  had  such  capabilities  of  joy, 
such  songs  in  them,  such  love  and  longing,  such  delight  in 
beauty — and  beauty  was  so  beautiful,  so  frequent,  so  thrilling! 
Yet  they  could  spend  but  a  glance,  a  sigh,  a  regret,  a  gratitude, 


THE    CUP    OF    FURY  113 

and  then  their  eyes  were  out,  their  ears  still,  their  lips  cold, 
their  hearts  dust.  The  ache  of  it  was  beyond  bearing. 

"Let's  walk.     I'm  cold  again,"  she  whispered. 

He  felt  that  she  needed  the  sense  of  hurry,  and  he  went  so 
fast  that  she  had  to  run  to  keep  up  with  him.  There  seemed 
to  be  some  comfort  in  the  privilege  of  motion  for  its  own  sake ; 
motion  was  life;  motion  was  godhood;  motion  was  escape 
from  the  run-down  clock  of  death. 

Back  and  forth  they  kept  their  promenade,  till  her  body 
refused  to  answer  the  whips  of  restlessness.  Her  brain  began 
to  shut  up  shop.  It  would  do  no  more  thinking  this  night. 

She  stumbled  toward  the  taxicab.  Davidge  lifted  her  in, 
and  she  sank  down,  completely  done.  She  fell  asleep. 

Davidge  took  his  place  in  the  cab  and  wondered  lazily 
at  the  quaint  adventure.  He  was  only  slightly  concerned 
with  wondering  at  the  cause  of  her  uneasiness.  He  was 
used  to  minding  his  own  business. 

She  slept  so  well  that  when  the  groping  search-light  of  a 
coming  automobile  began  to  slash  the  night  and  the  rubber 
wheels  boomed  across  the  bridge  she  did  not  waken.  If  the 
taxi-driver  heard  its  sound,  he  preferred  to  pretend  not  to. 
The  passengers  in  the  passing  car  must  have  been  surprised, 
but  they  took  their  wonderment  with  them.  We  so  often 
imagine  mischief  when  there  is  innocence  and  vice  versa; 
for  opportunity  is  just  as  likely  to  create  distaste  as  interest 
and  the  lack  of  it  to  instigate  enterprise. 

Davidge  drowsed  and  smiled  contentedly  in  the  dark  and 
did  not  know  that  he  was  not  awake  until  at  some  later  time 
he  was  half  aroused  by  the  meteoric  glow  and  whiz  of  another 
automobile.  It  had  gone  before  he  was  quite  awake,  and  he 
sank  back  into  sleep. 

Before  he  knew  it,  many  black  hours  had  slid  by  and  day 
light  was  come;  the  rosy  fingers  of  light  were  moving  about, 
recreating  the  world  to  vision,  sketching  a  landscape  hazily 
on  a  black  canvas,  then  stippling  in  the  colors,  and  finishing, 
swiftly  but  gradually,  the  details  to  an  inconceivable  minute 
ness  of  definition,  giving  each  leaf  its  own  sharp  contour  and 
every  rock  its  every  facet.  From  the  brook  below  a  mistlike 
cigarette  smoke  exhaled.  The  sky  was  crimson,  then  pink, 
then  amber,  then  blue. 

Birds  began  to  twitter,  to  fashion  little  crystal  stanzas, 


ii4  THE    CUP   OF    FURY 

and  to  hurl  themselves  about  the  valley  as  if  catapults  pro 
pelled  them.  One  songster  perched  on  the  iron  rail  of  the 
bridge  and  practised  a  vocal  lesson,  cocking  his  head  from 
side  to  side  and  seeming  to  approve  his  own  skill. 

A  furred  caterpillar  resumed  his  march  across  the  Appian 
Way,  making  of  each  crack  between  boards  a  great  abyss  to 
be  bridged  cautiously  with  his  own  body.  The  day's  work 
was  begun,  while  Davidge  drowsed  and  smiled  contentedly 
at  the  side  of  the  strange,  sleeping  woman  as  if  they  had  been 
married  for  years. 


CHAPTER  IV 

r"PHE  sky  was  filled  with  morning  when  a  noise  startled 
I  Davidge  out  of  nullity.  He  was  amazed  to  find  a 
strange  woman  asleep  at  his  elbow.  He  remembered  her 
suddenly. 

With  a  clatter  of  wheels  and  cans  and  hoofs  a  milkman's 
wagon  and  team  came  out  of  the  hills.  Davidge  stepped  down 
from  the  car  and  stopped  the  loud-voiced,  wide-mouthed 
driver  with  a  gesture.  He  spoke  in  a  low  voice  which  the 
milkman  did  not  copy.  The  taxi-driver  woke  to  the  extent 
of  one  eye  and  a  horrible  yawn,  while  Davidge  explained  his 
plight. 

"Gasolene  gave  out,  hey?"  said  the  milkman. 

"It  certainly  did,"  said  Davidge,  "and  I'd  be  very  much 
obliged  if  you'd  get  me  some  more." 

"Wa-all,  I'm  purty  busy." 

"I'll  pay  you  anything  you  ask." 

The  milkman  was  modest  in  his  ambitions. 

"How'd  two  dollars  strike  ye?" 

"Five  would  be  better  if  you  hurried." 

This  looked  suspicious,  but  the  milkman  consented. 

"Wa-all,  all  right,  but  what  would  I  fetch  the  gasolene  in?" 

"One  of  your  milk-cans." 

"They're  all  fuller  melk." 

"  I'll  buy  one,  milk  and  all." 

"Wa-all,  I  reckon  I'll  hev  to  oblige  you." 

' '  Here's  five  dollars  on  account.  There'll  be  five  more  when 
you  get  back." 

"Wa-all,  all  ri-ight.     Get  along  there,  Jawn  Henry." 

John  Henry  got  along.  Even  his  cloppety-clop  did  not 
waken  Miss  Webling. 

The  return  of  the  rattletrap  and  the  racket  of  filling  the 
tank  with  the  elixir  finished  her  sleep,  however.  She  woke 


n6  THE    CUP   OF    FURY 

in  confusion,  finding  herself  sitting  up,  dressed,  in  her  little 
room,  with  three  strange  men  at  work  outside. 

When  the  tank  was  filled,  Davidge  entered  her  compartment 
with  a  cheery  "Good  morning,"  and  slammed  the  door  after 
him.  The  gasolene,  like  the  breath  of  a  god,  gave  life  to  the 
dead.  The  car  snarled  and  jumped,  and  went  roaring  across 
the  bridge,  up  the  hill  and  down  another,  and  down  that 
and  up  another. 

Here  they  caught,  through  a  frame  of  leaves,  a  glimpse  of 
Washington  in  the  sunrise,  a  great  congregation  of  marble 
temples  and  trees  and  sky-colored  waters,  the  shaft  of  the 
Monument  lighted  with  the  milky  radiance  of  a  mountain 
peak  on  its  upper  half,  the  lower  part  still  dusk  with  valley 
shadow,  and  across  the  plateau  of  roofs  the  solemn  Capitol 
in  as  mythical  a  splendor  as  the  stately  dome  that  Kubla 
Khan  decreed  in  Xanadu. 

This  sight  of  Canaan  from  Pisgah-height  was  no  luxury 
to  the  taxi-driver,  and  he  hustled  his  coffee-grinder  till  he 
reached  Rosslyn  once  more,  crossed  the  Potomac's  many- 
tinted  stream,  and  rattled  through  Georgetown  and  the  shabby, 
sleeping  little  shops  of  M  Street  into  the  tree-tunnels  of 
Washington. 

He  paused  to  say,  "Where  do  we  go  from  here?" 

Davidge  and  Marie  Louise  looked  their  chagrin.  They  still 
had  no  place  to  go. 

"To  the  Pennsylvania  Station,"  said  Davidge.  "We  can 
at  least  get  breakfast  there." 

The  streets  of  Washington  are  never  so  beautiful  as  at  this 
still  hour  when  nothing  stirs  but  the  wind  in  the  trees  and  the 
grass  on  the  lawns,  and  hardly  anybody  is  abroad  except  the 
generals  on  their  bronze  horses  fronting  their  old  battles 
with  heroic  eyes.  The  station  outside  was  something  Olympic 
but  unfrequented.  Inside,  it  was  a  vast  cathedral  of  un- 
tenanted  pews. 

Davidge  paid  the  driver  a  duke's  ransom.  There  was  no 
porter  about,  and  he  carried  Marie  Louise's  suit-cases  to  the 
parcel-room.  Her  baggage  had  had  a  long  journey.  She 
retreated  to  the  women's  room  for  what  toilet  she  could 
make,  and  came  forth  with  a  very  much  washed  face.  Som 
nambulistic  negroes  took  their  orders  at  the  lunch-counter. 

Marie  Louise  had  weakly  decided  to  return  to  New  York 


THE    CUP    OF    FURY  117 

again,  but  the  hot  coffee  was  full  of  defiance,  and  she  said  that 
she  would  make  another  try  at  Mrs.  Widdicombe  as  soon  as  a 
human  hour  arrived. 

And  she  showed  a  tactfulness  that  won  much  respect  from 
Davidge  when  she  said: 

"Do  get  your  morning  paper  and  read  it.  I'm  sure  I  have 
nothing  to  say  that  I  haven't  said,  and  if  I  had,  it  could 
wait  till  you  find  out  how  the  battle  goes  in  Europe." 

He  bought  her  a  paper,  too,  and  they  sat  on  a  long  bench, 
exchanging  comments  on  the  news  that  made  almost  every 
front  page  a  chapter  in  world  history. 

She  heard  him  groan  with  rage.  When  she  looked  up  he 
pointed  to  the  submarine  record  of  that  week. 

"Last  week  the  losses  took  a  horrible  jump — forty  ships 
of  over  sixteen  hundred  tons.  This  week  it's  almost  as  bad — 
thirty-eight  ships  of  over  sixteen  hundred,  thirteen  ships 
under,  and  eight  fishing-vessels.  Think  of  it — all  of  'em 
merchant-ships ! 

"Pretty  soon  I've  got  to  send  my  ship  out  to  run  the 
gantlet.  She's  like  Little  Red  Riding  Hood  going  through  the 
forest  to  take  old  Granny  Britain  some  food.  And  the  wolves 
are  waiting  for  her.  What  a  race  of  people,  what  a  pack  of 
beasts!" 

Marie  Louise  had  an  idea.  "I'll  tell  you  a  pretty  name  for 
your  ship — Little  Red  Riding  Hood.  Why  don't  you  give  her 
that?" 

He  laughed.  "The  name  would  be  heavier  than  the 
cargo.  I  wonder  what  the  crew  would  make  of  it.  No, 
this  ship,  my  first  one,  is  to  be  named  after" — he  lowered 
his  voice  as  one  does  on  entering  a  church — "after  my 
mother." 

"Oh,  that's  beautiful!"  Marie  Louise  said.  "And  will  she 
be  there  to  christen —  Oh,  I  remember,  you  said — 

He  nodded  three  or  four  times  in  wretchedness.  But  the 
grief  was  his  own,  and  he  must  not  exploit  it.  He  assumed 
an  abrupt  cheer. 

"I'll  name  the  next  ship  after  you,  if  you  don't  mind." 

This  was  too  glorious  to  be  believed.  What  bouquet  or 
jewel  could  equal  it?  She  clapped  her  hands  like  a  child 
hearing  a  Christmas  promise. 

"What  is  your  first  name,  Miss  Webling?" 


ii8  THE    CUP   OF    FURY 

She  suddenly  realized  that  they  were  not,  after  all,  such 
old  friends  as  the  night  had  seemed  to  make  them. 

"My  first  two  names,"  she  said,  "are  Marie  Louise." 

"Oh!     Well,  then  we'll  call  the  ship  Marie  Louise." 

She  saw  that  he  was  a  little  disappointed  in  the  name,  so 
she  said: 

"When  I  was  a  girl  they  called  me  Mamise." 

She  was  puzzled  to  see  how  this  startled  him. 

He  jumped  audibly  and  fastened  a  searching  gaze  on  her. 
Mamise!  He  had  thought  of  Mamise  when  he  saw  her,  and 
now  she  gave  the  name.  Could  she  possibly  be  the  Mamise  he 
remembered?  He  started  to  ask  her,  but  checked  himself  and 
blushed.  A  fine  thing  it  would  be  to  ask  this  splendid  young 
princess,  "Pardon  me,  Princess,  but  were  you  playing  in 
cheap  vaudeville  a  few  years  ago?"  It  was  an  improbable 
coincidence  that  he  should  meet  her  thus,  but  an  almost 
impossible  coincidence  that  she  should  wear  both  the  name 
and  the  mien  of  Mamise  and  not  be  Mamise.  But  he  dared 
not  ask  her. 

She  noted  his  blush  and  stammer,  but  she  was  afraid  to 
ask  their  cause. 

"Mamise  it  shall  be,"  he  said. 

And  she  answered,  "I  was  never  so  honored  in  my  life." 

"Of  course,"  he  warned  her,  "the  boat  isn't  built  yet. 
In  fact,  the  new  yard  isn't  built  yet.  There's  many  a  slip 
'twixt  the  keel  and  the  ship.  She  might  never  live  to 
be  launched.  Some  of  these  sneaking  loafers  on  our  side 
may  blow  her  up  before  the  submarines  get  a  chance  at 
her." 

There  he  was,  speaking  of  submarines  once  more!  She 
shivered,  and  she  looked  at  the  clock  and  got  up  and  said: 

"I  think  I'll  try  Mrs.  Widdicombe  now." 

"Let  me  go  along,"  said  Davidge. 

But  she  shook  her  head.  "I've  taken  enough  of  your  life — 
for  the  present." 

Trying  to  concoct  a  felicitous  reply,  he  achieved  only  an 
eloquent  silence.  He  put  her  and  her  luggage  aboard  a  taxi- 
cab,  and  then  she  gave  him  her  most  cordial  hand. 

"I  could  never  hope  to  thank  you  enough,"  she  said,  "and 
I  won't  begin  to  try.  Send  me  your  address  when  you  have 
one,  and  I'll  mail  you  Mrs.  Widdicombe's  confidential  tele- 


THE    CUP    OF    FURY  119 

phone-number.     I  do  want  to  see  you  soon  again,  unless 
you've  had  enough  of  me  for  a  lifetime." 

He  did  very  handsomely  by  the  lead  she  gave  him: 
"I  couldn't  have  enough — not  in  a  lifetime." 
The  taxi-driver  snipped  the  strands  of  their  gaze  as  he 
whisked  her  away. 

Marie  Louise  felt  a  forenoon  elation  in  the  cool  air  and  the 
bright  streets,  thick  with  men  and  women  in  herds  hurrying 
to  their  patriotic  tasks,  and  a  multitude  of  officers  and  enlisted 
men  seeking  their  desks.  She  was  here  to  join  them,  and  she 
hoped  that  it  would  not  be  too  hard  to  find  some  job  with  a 
little  thrill  of  service  in  it. 

As  she  went  through  Georgetown  now  M  Street  was  dif 
ferent — full  of  marketers  and  of  briskness.  The  old  bridge 
was  crowded.  As  her  car  swooped  up  the  hills  and  skirted  the 
curves  to  Polly  Widdicombe's  she  began  to  be  afraid  again. 
But  she  was  committed  to  the  adventure  and  she  was  eager 
for  the  worst  of  it.  She  found  the  house  without  trouble 
and  saw  in  the  white  grove  of  columns  Polly  herself,  bidding 
good-by  to  her  husband,  whose  car  was  waiting  at  the  foot 
of  the  steps. 

Polly  hailed  Marie  Louise  with  cries  of  such  delight  that 
before  the  cab  had  made  the  circle  and  drawn  up  at  the  steps 
the  hunted  look  was  gone  and  youth  come  back  to  Marie 
Louise's  anxious  smile.  Polly  kissed  her  and  presented  her 
husband,  pointing  to  the  gold  leaves  on  his  shoulders  with 
militaristic  pride. 

Widdicombe  blushed  and  said:  "Fearless  desk-fighter  has 
to  hurry  off  to  battle  with  ruthless  stenographers.  Such  are 
the  horrors  of  war!" 

He  insisted  on  paying  Marie  Louise's  driver,  though  she 
said,  "Women  will  never  be  free  so  long  as  men  insist  on 
paying  all  their  bills." 

Polly  said:  "  Hush,  or  the  brute  will  set  me  free!  " 
He  kissed  Polly,  waved  to  Marie  Louise,  stepped  into  his 
car,  and  shot  away. 

Polly  watched  him  with  devout  eyes  and  said: 

"Poor  boy!  he's  dying  to  get  across  into  the  trenches,  but 

they  won't  take  him  because  he's  a  little  near-sighted,  thank 

God!     And  he  works  like  a  dog,  day  and  night."    Then  she 

returned  to  the  rites  of  hospitality.     "Had  your  breakfast?" 


120  THE    CUP    OF    FURY 

"At  the  station."  The  truth  for  once  coincided  very 
pleasantly  with  convenience. 

"Then  I  know  what  you  want,"  said  Polly,  "a  bath  and 
a  nap.  After  that  all-night  train-trip  you  ought  to  be  a 
wreck." 

"I  am." 

Polly  led  her  to  a  welcoming  room  that  would  have  been 
quite  pretty  enough  if  it  had  had  only  a  bed  and  a  chair. 
Marie  Louise  felt  as  if  she  had  come  out  of  the  wilderness  into 
a  city  of  refuge.  Polly  had  an  engagement,  a  committee 
meeting  of  women  war- workers,  and  would  not  be  back  until 
luncheon-time.  Marie  Louise  steeped  herself  in  a  hot  tub, 
then  in  a  long  sweet  sleep  in  a  real  bed.  She  was  wakened 
by  the  voices  of  children,  and  looked  out  from  her  window  to 
see  the  Widdicombe  tots  drilling  in  a  company  of  three 
with  a  drum,  a  flag,  and  a  wooden  gun.  The  American  army 
was  not  much  bigger  compared  with  the  European  nations  in 
arms,  but  it  would  grow. 

Polly  came  home  well  charged  with  electricity,  the  new- 
woman  idea  that  was  claiming  half  of  the  war,  the  true 
squaw-spirit  that  takes  up  the  drudgery  at  home  while  the 
braves  go  out  to  swap  missiles  with  the  enemy.  When  Marie 
Louise  said  that  she,  too,  had  come  to  Washington  to  get 
into  harness  somewhere,  Polly  promised  her  a  plethora  of 
opportunities. 

At  luncheon  Polly  was  reminded  of  the  fact  that  a  pho 
tographer  was  coming  over  from  Washington.  He  had  asked 
for  sittings,  and  she  had  acceded  to  his  request. 

"I  never  can  get  photographs  enough  of  my  homely  self," 
said  Polly.  "I'm  always  hoping  that  by  some  accident  the 
next  one  will  make  me  look  as  I  want  to  look — make  ithers 
see  me  as  I  see  mysel'!" 

When  the  camera-man  arrived  Polly  insisted  that  Marie 
Louise  must  pose,  too,  and  grew  so  urgent  that  she  consented 
at  last,  to  quiet  her.  They  spent  a  harrowing  afternoon 
striking  attitudes  all  over  the  place,  indoors  and  out,  standing, 
sitting,  heads  and  half-lengths,  profile  and  three-quarters 
and  full  face.  Their  muscles  ached  with  the  struggle  to 
assume  and  retain  beatific  expressions  on  an  empty  soul. 

The  consequences  of  that  afternoon  of  self-impersonation 
were  far-reaching  for  Marie  Louise. 


THE    CUP    OF    FURY  121 

According  to  the  Washingtonian  custom,  one  of  the  new 
photographs  appeared  the  following  Sunday  in  each  of  the  four 
newspapers.  The  Sunday  after  that  Marie  Louise's  likeness 
appeared  with  "Dolly  Madison's"  and  Jean  Elliott's  syn 
dicated  letters  on  "The  Week  in  Washington"  in  Sunday 
supplements  throughout  the  country.  Every  now  and  then 
her  likeness  popped  out  at  her  from  Town  and  Country,  Vogue, 
Harper's  Bazar,  The  Spur,  what  not? 

One  of  those  countless  images  fell  into  the  hands  of  Jake 
Nuddle,  who  had  been  keeping  an  incongruous  eye  on  the 
Sunday  supplements  for  some  time.  This  time  the  double  of 
Mamise  was  not  posed  as  a  farmerette  in  an  English  land 
scape,  but  as  a  woman  of  fashion  in  a  Colonial  drawing-room. 

He  hurried  to  his  wife  with  the  picture,  and  she  called  it 
"Mamise"  with  a  recrudescent  anguish  of  doubt. 

"She's  in  this  country  now,  the  paper  says,"  said  Jake. 
"She's  in  Washington,  and  if  I  was  you  I'd  write  her  a  little 
letter  astin'  her  is  she  our  sister." 

Mrs.  Nuddle  was  crying  too  loosely  to  note  that  "our." 
The  more  Jake  considered  the  matter  the  less  he  liked  the 
thought  of  waiting  for  a  letter  to  go  and  an  answer  to  come. 

"Meet  'em  face  to  face;  that's  me!"  he  declared  at  last. 
"I  think  I'll  just  take  a  trip  to  the  little  old  capital  m'self. 
I  can  tell  the  rest  the  c'mittee  I'm  goin'  to  put  a  few  things  up 
to  some  them  Senators  and  Congersmen.  That  '11  get  my 
expenses  paid  for  me." 

There  simply  was  nobody  that  Jake  Nuddle  would  not 
cheat,  if  he  could. 

His  always  depressing  wife  suggested:  "Supposin'  the  lady 
says  she  ain't  Mamise,  how  you  goin'  to  prove  she  is?  You 
never  seen  her." 

Jake  snarled  at  her  for  a  fool,  but  he  knew  that  she  was  right. 
He  resisted  the  dismal  necessity  as  long  as  he  could,  and  then 
extended  one  of  his  most  cordial  invitations: 

"Aw,  hell!   I  reckon  I'll  have  to  drag  you  along." 

He  grumbled  and  cursed  his  fate  and  resolved  to  make 
Mamise  pay  double  for  ruining  his  excursion. 


CHAPTER  V 

FOR  a  time  Marie  Louise  had  the  solace  of  being  busy 
and  of  nibbling  at  the  edge  of  great  occasions.  The 
nation  was  reconstituting  its  whole  life,  and  Washington  was 
the  capital  of  all  the  Allied  peoples,  their  brazen  serpent  and 
their  promise  of  salvation.  Almost  everybody  was  doing 
with  his  or  her  might  what  his  or  her  hand  found  to  do. 
Repetition  and  contradiction  of  effort  abounded;  there  was 
every  confusion  of  counsel  and  of  action.  But  the  Republic 
was  gathering  itself  for  a  mighty  leap  into  the  arena.  For 
the  first  time  women  were  being  not  merely  permitted,  but 
pleaded  with,  to  lend  their  aid. 

Marie  Louise  rolled  bandages  at  a  Red  Cross  room  presided 
over  by  a  pleasant  widow,  Mrs.  Perry  Merithew,  with  a  son 
in  the  aviation,  who  was  forever  needing  bandages.  Mamise 
tired  of  these,  bought  a  car  and  joined  the  Women's  Motor 
Corps.  She  had  a  collision  with  a  reckless  wretch  named 
"Pet"  Bettany,  and  resigned.  She  helped  with  big  festivals, 
toiled  day  and  night  at  sweaters,  and  finally  bought  herself 
a  knitting-machine  and  spun  out  half  a  dozen  pairs  of  socks 
a  day,  by  keeping  a  sweatshop  pace  for  sweatshop  hours. 
She  was  trying  to  find  a  more  useful  job.  The  trouble  was 
that  everybody  wanted  to  be  at  something,  to  get  into  a 
uniform  of  some  sort,  to  join  the  universal  mobilization. 

She  went  out  little  of  evenings,  preferring  to  keep  herself 
in  the  seclusion  of  the  Rosslyn  home.  Gradually  her  fears 
subsided  and  she  felt  that  her  welcome  was  wearing  through. 
She  began  to  look  for  a  place  to  live.  Washington  was  in  a 
panic  of  rentals.  Apartments  cost  more  than  houses.  A 
modest  creature  who  had  paid  seventy-five  dollars  a  month 
for  a  little  flat  let  it  for  five  hundred  a  month  for  the  duration 
of  the  war.  A  gorgeous  Sultana  who  had  a  two-hundred-and- 
fifty-dollar-a-month  apartment  rented  it  for  a  thousand 
dollars  a  month  "for  the  duration."  Marie  Louise  had  money 


THE   CUP   OF    FURY  123 

enough,  but  she  could  hardly  find  anything  that  it  would 
buy. 

She  planned  to  secure  a  clerical  post  in  some  of  the  offices. 
She  took  up  shorthand  and  poked  a  typewriter  and  read  books 
on  system  and  efficiency,  then  gave  them  up  as  Greek. 

Once  in  a  while  she  saw  Ross  Davidge.  He  suffered  an 
intermittent  fever  of  hope  and  despondency.  He,  too,  was 
trying  to  do  his  bit,  but  he  was  lost  in  the  maelstrom  swirling 
through  the  channels  of  official  life.  He  would  come  to  town 
for  a  few  days,  wait  about,  fuming,  and  return  in  disgust  to 
his  shipyard.  It  was  not  altogether  patriotism  that  pulled  him 
back  to  Washington.  Marie  Louise  was  there,  and  he  lost 
several  appointments  with  the  great  folk  he  came  to  see,  be 
cause  their  hours  clashed  with  Marie  Louise's. 

On  one  of  his  voyages  he  was  surprised  to  find  at  his  hotel 
an  invitation  to  dine  at  Mrs.  Prothero's.  Little  as  he  knew 
of  the  eminent  ones  of  the  fashionable  world,  he  knew  the 
famous  name  of  Prothero.  He  had  spoken  with  reverence 
always  of  her  late  husband,  one  of  the  rebuilders  of  the 
American  navy,  a  voice  crying  in  the  wilderness  for  a  revival 
of  the  ancient  glories  of  the  merchant  marine.  Davidge  had 
never  met  him  or  his  widow.  He  felt  that  he  could  not 
refuse  the  unexplained  opportunity  to  pay  at  least  his  respects 
to  the  relict  of  his  idol. 

But  he  wondered  by  what  means  Mrs.  Prothero,  whom 
everybody  had  heard  of,  had  heard  of  him.  When  he  entered 
her  door  on  the  designated  evening  his  riddle  was  answered. 

The  butler  glanced  at  his  card,  then  picked  from  a  heap  on 
the  console  a  little  envelop  which  he  proffered  on  his  tray. 
The  envelop  was  about  the  size  of  those  that  new  -  born 
parents  use  to  inclose  the  proclamation  of  the  advent  of  a  new 
born  infant.  The  card  inside  Davidge's  envelop  carried  the 
legend,  "Miss  Webling." 

The  butler  led  him  to  the  drawing-room  door  and  announced 
him.  There  indeed  was  Marie  Louise,  arm  in  arm  with  a 
majestic  granddam  in  a  coronet  of  white  hair. 

Marie  Louise  put  out  her  hand,  and  Davidge  went  to  it. 
She  clasped  his  and  passed  it  on  to  Mrs.  Prothero  with  a 
character : 

"This  is  the  great  Mr.  Davidge,  the  shipwright." 

Mrs.  Prothero  pressed  his  hand  and  kept  it  while  she  said: 


i24  THE    CUP   OF    FURY 

"It  is  like  Marie  Louise  to  bring  youth  to  cheer  up  an  old 
crone  like  me." 

Davidge  muffed  the  opening  horribly.  Instead  of  saying 
something  brilliant  about  how  young  Mrs.  Prothero  looked, 
he  said: 

' '  Youth  ?    I'm  a  hundred  years  old. ' ' 

"You  are!"  Mrs.  Prothero  cried.  "Then  how  old  does 
that  make  me,  in  the  Lord's  name — a  million?" 

Davidge  could  not  even  recover  the  foot  he  had  put  in  it. 
By  looking  foolish  and  keeping  silent  he  barely  saved  himself 
from  adding  the  other  foot.  Mrs.  Prothero  smiled  at  his 
discomfiture. 

"Don't  worry.  I'm  too  ancient  to  be  caught  by  pretty 
speeches — or  to  like  the  men  who  have  'em  always  ready." 

She  pressed  his  hand  again  and  turned  to  welcome  the 
financial  Cyclops,  James  Dyckman,  and  his  huge  wife,  and 
Captain  Fargeton,  a  foreign  military  attache"  with  service 
chevrons  and  wound-chevrons  and  a  croix  de  guerre,  and  a  wife, 
who  had  been  Mildred  Tait. 

"All  that  and  an  American  spouse!"  said  Davidge  to 
Marie  Louise. 

"Have  you  never  had  an  American  spouse?"  she  asked, 
brazenly. 

"Not  one!"  he  confessed. 

Major  and  Polly  Widdicombe  had  come  in  with  Marie 
Louise,  and  Davidge  drifted  into  their  circle.  The  great  room 
filled  gradually  with  men  of  past  or  future  fame,  and  the  poor 
women  who  were  concerned  in  enduring  its  acquisition. 

Marie  Louise  was  radiant  in  mood  and  queenly  in  attire. 
Davidge  was  startled  by  the  magnificence  of  her  jewelry. 
Some  of  it  was  of  old  workmanship,  royal  heirloomry.  Her 
accent  was  decidedly  English,  yet  her  race  was  undoubtedly 
American.  The  many  things  about  her  that  had  puzzled  him 
subconsciously  began  to  clamor  at  least  for  the  attention  of 
curiosity.  He  watched  her  making  the  best  of  herself,  as  a 
skilful  woman  does  when  she  is  all  dressed  up  in  handsome 
scenery  among  toplofty  people. 

Polly  was  describing  the  guests  as  they  came  in: 

"That's  Colonel  Harvey  Forbes.  His  name  has  been  sent 
to  Congress  for  approval  as  a  brigadier-general.  I  knew  him 
in  the  midst  of  the  wildest  scandal — remind  me  to  tell  you. 


THE    CUP   OF    FURY  125 

He  was  only  a  captain  then.  He'll  probably  end  as  a  king 
or  something.  This  war  is  certainly  good  to  some  people." 

Davidge  watched  Marie  Louise  studying  the  somber  officer. 
He  was  a  bit  jealous,  shamed  by  his  own  civilian  clothes. 
Suddenly  Marie  Louise's  smile  at  Polly's  chatter  stopped  short, 
shriveled,  then  returned  to  her  face  with  a  look  of  effort. 
Her  muscles  seemed  to  be  determined  that  her  lips  should 
not  droop. 

Davidge  heard  the  butler  announce: 

"Lady  Clifton-Wyatt  and  General  Sir  Hector  Havendish." 

Davidge  wondered  which  of  the  two  names  could  have  so 
terrified  Marie  Louise.  Naturally  he  supposed  that  it  was  the 
man's.  He  turned  to  study  the  officer  in  his  British  uniform. 
He  saw  a  tall,  loose- jointed,  jovial  man  of  horsy  look  and 
carriage,  and  no  hint  of  mystery — one  would  say  an  intolerance 
of  mystery. 

Lady  Clifton-Wyatt  was  equally  amiable.  She  laughed  and 
wrung  the  hands  of  Mrs.  Prothero.  They  were  like  two  school 
girls  met  in  another  century. 

Davidge  noted  that  Marie  Louise  turned  her  back  and 
listened  with  extraordinary  interest  to  Major  Widdicombe's 
old  story  about  an  Irishman  who  did  or  said  something  or 
other.  Davidge  heard  Mrs.  Prothero  say  to  Lady  Clifton- 
Wyatt,  with  all  the  joy  in  the  world: 

"Who  do  you  suppose  is  here  but  our  Marie  Louise?" 

"Our  Marie  Louise?"  Lady  Clifton-Wyatt  echoed,  with  a 
slight  chill. 

"Yes,  Marie  Louise  Webling.  It  was  at  her  house  that  I 
met  you.  Where  has  the  child  got  to?  There  she  is." 

Without  raising  her  voice  she  focused  it  between  Marie 
Louise's  shoulder-blades. 

"Marie  Louise,  my  dear!" 

Marie  Louise  turned  and  came  up  like  a  wax  image  on 
casters  pulled  forward  by  an  invisible  window-dresser.  Lady 
Clifton-Wyatt's  limber  attitude  grew  erect,  deadly,  ominously 
hostile.  She  looked  as  if  she  would  turn  Marie  Louise  to 
stone  with  a  Medusa  glare,"but  she  evidently  felt  that  she  had 
no  right  to  commit  petrifaction  in  Mrs.  Prothero's  home; 
so  she  bowed  and  murmured: 

"Ah,  yis!     How  are  you?" 

To  Davidge's  amazement,  Miss  Webling,  instead  of  meeting 


126  THE    CUP   OF    FURY 

the  rebuff  in  kind,  wavered  before  it  and  bowed  almost  grate 
fully.  Then,  to  Davidge's  confusion,  Lady  Clifton-Wyatt 
marched  on  him  with  a  gush  of  cordiality  as  if  she  had  been 
looking  for  him  around  the  Seven  Seas.  She  remembered  him, 
called  him  by  name  and  told  him  that  she  had  seen  his  pickchah 
in  one  of  the  papahs,  as  one  of  the  creatahs  of  the  new  fleet. 

Mrs.  Prothero  was  stunned  for  a  moment  by  the  scene,  but 
she  had  passed  through  so  many  women's  wars  that  she  had 
learned  to  ignore  them  even  when — especially  when — her 
drawing-room  was  the  battleground. 

Her  mind  was  drawn  from  the  incident  by  the  materializa 
tion  of  the  butler. 

Lady  Clifton-Wyatt,  noting  that  the  tide  was  setting  toward 
the  dining-room  and  that  absent-minded  Sir  Hector  was 
floating  along  the  current  at  the  elbow  of  the  pretty  young 
girl,  said  to  Davidge: 

"Are  you  taking  me  out  or — " 

It  was  a  horrible  moment,  for  all  its  unimportance,  but  he 
mumbled : 

"I — I  am  sorry,  but — er — Miss  Webling — 

"Oh!  Ah!"  said  Lady  Clifton-Wyatt.  It  was  a  very 
short  "Oh!"  and  a  very  long  "Ah!"  a  sort  of  gliding,  crushing 
"Ah!"  It  went  over  him  like  a  tank,  leaving  him  flat. 

Lady  Clifton-Wyatt  reached  Sir  Hector's  arm  in  a  few  strides 
and  unhooked  him  from  the  girl — also  the  girl  from  him.  The 
girl  was  grateful.  Sir  Hector  was  used  to  disappointments. 

Davidge  went  to  Marie  Louise,  who  stood  lonely  and  dis 
traught.  He  felt  ashamed  of  his  word  "sorry"  and  hoped 
she  hadn't  heard  it.  Silently  and  crudely  he  angled  his 
arm,  and  she  took  it  and  went  along  with  him  in  a  somnam 
bulism. 

Davidge,  manlike,  tried  to  cheer  up  his  elbow-mate  by  a 
compliment.  A  man's  first  aid  to  a  woman  in  distress  is  a 
compliment  or  a  few  pats  of  the  hand.  He  said: 

"This  is  the  second  big  dinner  you  and  I  have  attended. 
There  were  bushels  of  flowers  between  us  before,  but  I'd 
rather  see  your  face  than  a  ton  of  roses." 

The  compliment  fell  out  like  a  ton  of  coal.  He  did  not  like 
it  at  all.  She  seemed  not  to  have  heard  him,  for  she  mur 
mured: 

"Yis,  isn't  it?" 


THE    CUP   OF    FURY  127 

Then,  as  the  occultists  say,  he  went  into  the  silence.  There 
is  nothing  busier  than  a  silence  at  a  dinner.  The  effort 
to  think  with  no  outlet  in  speech  kept  up  such  a  roaring  in 
his  head  that  he  could  hardly  grasp  what  the  rest  were  saying. 

Lady  Clifton- Wyatt  sat  at  Davidge's  right  and  kept  invad 
ing  his  quiet  communion  with  Marie  Louise  by  making 
remarks  of  the  utmost  graciousness  somehow  fermented — like 
wine  turned  vinegar. 

"I  wonder  if  you  remember  when  we  met  in  London, 
Mr.  Davidge  ?  It  was  just  after  the  poor  Lusitania  was  sunk. ' ' 

"So  it  was,"  said  Davidge. 

"It  was  at  Sir  Joseph  Webling's.  You  knew  he  was  dead, 
didn't  you?  Or  did  you?" 

"Yes,  Miss  Webling  told  me." 

"Oh,  did  she!     I  was  curious  to  know." 

She  cast  a  look  past  him  at  Marie  Louise  and  saw  that  the 
girl  was  about  ready  to  make  a  scene.  She  smiled  and 
deferred  further  torture. 

Mrs.  Prothero  supervened.  She  had  the  beautiful  theory 
that  the  way  to  make  her  guests  happy  was  to  get  them  to 
talking  about  themselves.  She  tried  to  draw  Davidge  out 
of  his  shell.  But  he  talked  about  her  husband  instead,  and  of 
the  great  work  he  had  done  for  the  navy.  He  turned  the 
tables  of  graciousness  on  her.  Her  nod  recognized  the 
chivalry;  her  lips  smiled  with  pride  in  her  husband's  praise; 
her  eyes  glistened  with  an  old  regret  made  new.  "He  would 
have  been  useful  now,"  she  sighed. 

"He  was  the  man  who  laid  the  keel-blocks  of  our  new 
navy,"  said  Davidge.  "The  thing  we  haven't  got  and  have 
got  to  get  is  a  merchant  marine." 

He  could  talk  of  that,  though  he  could  not  celebrate  himself. 
He  was  still  going  strong  when  the  dinner  was  finished. 

Mrs.  Prothero  clung  to  the  old  custom.  She  took  the  women 
away  with  her  to  the  drawing-room,  leaving  the  men  alone. 

Davidge  noted  that  Lady  Clifton- Wyatt  left  the  dining- 
room  with  a  kind  of  eagerness,  Marie  Louise  reluctantly. 
She  cast  him  a  look  that  seemed  to  cry  "Help!"  He  won 
dered  what  the  feud  could  be  that  threw  Miss  Webling  into 
such  apparent  panic.  He  could  not  tolerate  the  thought  that 
she  had  a  yellow  streak  in  her. 
9 


CHAPTER  VI 

EDY  CLIFTON-WYATT,  like  many  another  woman,  was 
kept  in  order  by  the  presence  of  men.  She  knew  that  the 
least  charming  of  attributes  in  masculine  eyes  are  the  female 
feline,  the  gift  and  art  of  claws. 

Men  can  be  catty,  too — torn-catty,  yet  contemptibly  feline 
when  they  are  not  on  their  good  behavior.  There  are  times 
when  the  warning,  "Gentlemen,  there  are  ladies  present," 
restores  them  to  order  as  quickly  as  the  entrance  of  a 
teacher  turns  a  school-room  of  young  savages  into  an  assembly 
of  young  saints. 

The  women  in  Mrs.  Prothero's  drawing-room  could  not 
hear  any  of  the  words  the  men  mixed  with  their  smoke,  but 
they  could  hear  now  and  then  a  muffled  explosion  of  laughter 
of  a  quality  that  indicated  what  had  provoked  it. 

The  women,  too,  were  relieved  of  a  certain  constraint  by 
their  isolation.  They  seemed  to  enjoy  the  release.  It  was 
like  getting  their  minds  out  of  tight  corsets.  They  were  not 
impatient  for  the  men — as  some  of  the  men  may  have  imagined. 
These  women  were  of  an  age  where  they  had  something  else 
to  think  of  besides  men.  They  had  careers  to  make  or  keep 
among  women  as  well  as  the  men  among  men. 

The  servants  kept  them  on  guard  till  the  coffee,  tobacco, 
and  liqueurs  were  distributed.  Then  recess  was  declared. 
Marie  Louise  found  herself  on  a  huge  tapestried  divan  pro 
vided  with  deep,  soft  cushions  that  held  her  like  a  quicksands. 
On  one  side  of  her  was  the  mountainous  Mrs.  Dyckman 
resembling  a  stack  of  cushions  cased  in  silk;  on  the  other  was 
Mildred  Tait  Fargeton,  whose  father  had  been  ambassador 
to  France. 

Marie  Louise  listened  to  their  chatter  with  a  frantic  im 
patience.  Polly  was  heliographing  ironic  messages  with  her 
eyes.  Polly  was  hemmed  in  by  the  wife  of  a  railroad  juggler, 
who  was  furious  at  the  Administration  because  it  did  not  put 


THE    CUP   OF    FURY  129 

all  its  transportation  problems  in  her  husband's  hands.  She 
would  not  have  intrusted  him  with  the  buying  of  a  spool  of 
thread;  but  that  was  different. 

Mrs.  Prothero  was  monopolized  by  Lady  Clifton-Wyatt. 
Marie  Louise  could  see  that  she  herself  was  the  theme  of  the 
talk,  for  Mrs.  Prothero  kept  casting  startled  glances  Marie- 
Louise-ward,  and  Lady  Clifton-Wyatt  glances  of  baleful 
stealth. 

Marie  Louise  had  proved  often  enough  that  she  was  no 
coward,  but  even  the  brave  turn  poltroon  when  they  fight 
without  a  sense  of  justification.  Her  pride  told  her  that  she 
ought  to  cross  over  to  Lady  Clifton-Wyatt  and  demand  that 
she  speak  up.  But  her  sense  of  guilt  robbed  her  of  her  courage. 
And  that  oath  she  had  given  to  Mr.  Verrinder  without  the 
least  reluctance  now  loomed  before  her  as  the  greatest  mistake 
of  her  life.  Her  sword  and  shield  were  both  in  pawn. 

She  gave  herself  up  for  lost  and  had  only  one  hope,  that 
the  men  would  not  come  in — especially  that  Ross  Davidge 
would  not  come  in  in  time  to  learn  what  Lady  Clifton-Wyatt 
was  so  eager  to  publish.  She  gave  Mrs.  Prothero  up  for  lost, 
too,  and  Polly.  But  she  wanted  to  keep  Ross  Davidge  fond 
of  her. 

Then  in  a  lull  Mrs.  Prothero  spoke  up  sharply: 

"I  simply  can't  believe  it,  my  dear.  I  don't  know  that 
I  ever  saw  a  German  spy,  but  that  child  is  not  one.  I'd  stake 
my  life  on  it." 

"And  now  the  avalanche!"  thought  Marie  Louise. 

The  word  "spy"  was  beginning  to  have  more  than  an 
academic  or  fictional  interest  to  Americans,  and  it  caught 
the  ear  of  every  person  present. 

Mrs.  Dyckman  and  Mme.  Fargeton  sat  up  as  straight  as 
their  curves  permitted  and  gasped: 

"A  German  spy!    Who?     Where?" 

Polly  Widdicombe  sprang  to  her  feet  and  darted  to  Mrs. 
Prothero's  side. 

"Oh,  how  lovely !  Tell  me  who  she  is !  I'm  dying  to  shoot 
a  spy." 

Marie  Louise  sickened  at  the  bloodthirstiness  of  Polly  the 
insouciante. 

Mrs.  Prothero  tried  to  put  down  the  riot  of  interest  by 
saying : 


i3o  THE   CUP   OF    FURY 

"Oh,  it's  nothing.    Lady  Clifton-Wyatt  is  just  joking." 

Lady  Clifton-Wyatt  was  at  bay.  She  shot  a  glance  at 
Marie  Louise  and  insisted: 

"Indeed  I'm  not!     I  tell  you  she  is  a  spy." 

"Who's  a  spy?"  Polly  demanded. 

"Miss  Webling,"  said  Lady  Clifton-Wyatt. 

Polly  began  to  giggle;  then  she  frowned  with  disappoint 
ment. 

"Oh,  I  thought  you  meant  it." 

"I  do  mean  it,  and  if  you'll  take  my  advice  you'll  be 
warned  in  time." 

Polly  turned,  expecting  to  find  Marie  Louise  showing  her 
contemptuous  amusement,  but  the  look  she  saw  on  Marie 
Louise's  face  was  disconcerting.  Polly's  loyalty  remained 
staunch.  She  hated  Lady  Clifton-Wyatt  anyway,  and  the 
thought  that  she  might  be  telling  the  truth  made  her  a  little 
more  hatable.  Polly  stormed: 

"I  won't  permit  you  to  slander  my  best  friend." 

Lady  Clifton-Wyatt  replied,  "I  don't  slahnda  hah,  and 
if  she  is  yaw  best  friend — well — " 

Lady  Clifton-Wyatt  hated  Polly  and  was  glad  of  the  weapon 
against  her.  Polly  felt  a  sudden  terrific  need  of  retorting 
with  a  blow.  Men  had  never  given  up  the  fist  on  the  mouth 
as  the  simple,  direct  answer  to  an  insult  too  complicated  for 
any  other  retort.  She  wanted  to  slap  Lady  Clifton-Wyatt 's 
face.  But  she  did  not  know  how  to  fight.  Perhaps  women 
will  acquire  the  male  prerogative  of  the  smash  in  the  jaw 
along  with  the  other  once  exclusive  masculine  privileges.  It 
will  do  them  no  end  of  good  and  help  to  clarify  all  life  for  them. 
But  for  the  present  Polly  could  only  groan,  "Agh!"  and  turn 
to  throw  an  arm  about  Marie  Louise  and  drag  her  forward. 

"I'd  believe  one  word  of  Marie  Louise  against  a  thousand 
of  yours,"  she  declared. 

"Very  well — ahsk  hah,  then." 

Polly  was  crying  mad,  and  madder  than  ever  because  she 
hated  herself  for  crying  when  she  got  mad.  She  almost 
sobbed  now  to  Marie  Louise,  "Tell  her  it's  a  dirty,  rotten  lie." 

Marie  Louise  had  been  dragged  to  her  feet.  She  temporized, 
"What  has  she  sai-said?" 

Polly  snickered  nervously,  "Oh,  nothing — except  that  you 
were  a  German  spy." 


THE   CUP   OF   FURY  131 

And  now  somewhere,  somehow,  Marie  Louise  found  the 
courage  of  desperation.  She  laughed: 

"Lady  Clifton-Wyatt  is  notori — famous  for  her  quaint 
sense  of  humor." 

Lady  Clifton-Wyatt  sneered,  "Could  one  expect  a  spy  to 
admit  it?" 

Marie  Louise  smiled  patiently.  "Probably  not.  But 
surely  even  you  would  hardly  insist  that  denying  it  proves  it  ?" 

This  sophistry  was  too  tangled  for  Polly.     She  spoke  up: 

"Let's  have  the  details,  Lady  Clifton-Wyatt — if  you  don't 
mind." 

"Yes,  yes,"  the  chorus  murmured. 

Lady  Clifton-Wyatt  braced  herself.  ' '  Well,  in  the  first  place 
Miss  Webling  is  not  Miss  Webling." 

"Oh,  but  I  am,"  said  Marie  Louise. 

Lady  Clifton-Wyatt  gasped,  "You  don't  mean  to  pretend 
that— 

"Did  you  read  the  will?"  said  Marie  Louise. 

"No,  of  course  not,  but — " 

"It  says  there  that  I  was  their  daughter." 

"Well,  we'll  not  quibble.  Legally  you  may  have  been,  but 
actually  you  were  their  adopted  child." 

"Yis?"  said  Marie  Louise.  "And  where  did  they  find  me? 
Had  you  heard?" 

"Since  you  force  me  to  it,  I  must  say  that  it  is  generally 
believed  that  you  were  the  natural  daughter  of  Sir  Joseph." 

Marie  Louise  was  tremendously  relieved  by  having  some 
thing  that  she  could  deny.  She  laughed  with  a  genuineness 
that  swung  the  credulity  all  her  way.  She  asked: 

"And  who  was  my  mother — my  natural  mother,  could  you 
tell  me?  I  really  ought  to  know." 

"She  is  believed  to  have  been  a — a  native  of  Australia." 

"Good  Heavens!     You  don't  mean  a  kangaroo?" 

"An  actress  playing  in  Vienna." 

"Oh,  I  am  relieved!  And  Sir  Joseph  was  my  father — yes. 
Do  go  on." 

"Whether  Sir  Joseph  was  your  father  or  not,  he  was  born 
in  Germany  and  so  was  his  wife,  and  they  took  a  false  oath 
of  allegiance  to  his  Majesty.  All  the  while  they  were  loyal 
only  to  the  Kaiser.  They  worked  for  him,  spied  for  him.  It  is 
said  that  the  Kaiser  had  promised  to  make  Sir  Joseph  one 


i32  THE    CUP   OF    FURY 

of  the  rulers  over  England  when  he  captured  the  island.  Sir 
Joseph  was  to  have  any  castle  he  wanted  and  untold  wealth." 

"What  was  I  to  have?"  Marie  Louise  was  able  to  mock 
her.  "Wasn't  I  to  have  at  least  Westminster  Abbey  to  live 
in?  And  one  of  the  crown  princes  for  a  husband?" 

Lady  Clifton-Wyatt  lost  her  temper  and  her  bearings. 

"Heaven  knows  what  you  were  promised,  but  you  did  your 
best  to  earn  it,  whatever  it  was." 

Mrs.  Prothero  lost  patience.  "Really,  my  dear  Lady 
Clifton-Wyatt,  this  is  all  getting  beyond  me." 

Lady  Clifton-Wyatt  grew  scarlet,  too.  She  spoke  with  the 
wrath  of  a  Tisiphone  whipping  herself  to  a  frenzy.  "I  will 
bring  you  proofs.  This  creature  was  a  paid  secret  agent,  a 
go-between  for  Sir  Joseph  and  the  Wilhelmstrasse.  She  car 
ried  messages.  She  went  into  the  slums  of  Whitechapel  dis 
guised  as  a  beggar  to  meet  the  conspirators.  She  carried  them 
lists  of  ships  with  their  cargoes,  dates  of  sailing,  destinations. 
She  carried  great  sums  of  money.  She  was  the  paymaster 
of  the  spies.  Her  hands  are  red  with  the  blood  of  British 
sailors  and  women  and  children.  She  grew  so  bold  that  at  last 
she  attracted  the  attention  of  even  Scotland  Yard.  She  was 
followed,  traced  to  Sir  Joseph's  home.  It  was  found  that  she 
lived  at  his  house. 

"One  of  the  spies,  named  Easling  or  Oesten,  was  her  lover. 
He  was  caught  and  met  his  deserts  before  a  firing-squad  in  the 
Tower.  His  confession  implicated  Sir  Joseph.  The  police 
raided  his  place.  A  terrific  fight  ensued.  He  resisted  arrest. 
He  tried  to  shoot  one  of  our  police.  The  bullet  went  wild  and 
killed  his  wife.  Before  he  could  fire  again  he  was  shot  down 
by  one  of  our  men." 

The  astonishing  transformations  the  story  had  undergone 
in  its  transit  from  gossip  to  gossip  stunned  Marie  Louise.  The 
memory  of  the  reality  saddened  her  beyond  laughter.  Her 
distress  was  real,  but  she  had  self-control  enough  to  focus 
it  on  Lady  Clifton-Wyatt  and  murmur: 

"Poor  thing,  she  is  quite  mad!" 

There  is  nothing  that  so  nearly  drives  one  insane  as  to  be 
accused  of  insanity. 

The  prosecutrix  almost  strangled  on  her  indignation  at 
Marie  Louise's  calm. 

"The    effrontery    of    this    woman    is    unendurable,    Mrs. 


THE   CUP   OF   FURY  133 

Prothero.  If  you  believe  her,  you  must  permit  me  to  leave. 
I  know  what  I  am  saying.  I  have  had  what  I  tell  you  from 
the  best  authority.  Of  course,  it  may  sound  insane,  but  wait 
until  you  learn  what  the  German  secret  agents  have  been  doing 
in  America  for  years  and  what  they  are  doing  now." 

There  had  been  publication  enough  of  the  sickening  duplic 
ity  of  ambassadors  and  attaches  to  lead  the  Americans  to 
believe  that  Teutonism  meant  anything  revolting.  Mrs. 
Prothero  was  befuddled  at  this  explosion  in  her  quiet  home. 
She  asked: 

"But  surely  all  this  has  never  been  published,  has  it? 
I  think  we  should  have  heard  of  it  here." 

"Of  course  not,"  said  Lady  Clifton-Wyatt.  "We  don't 
publish  the  accounts  of  the  submarines  we  sink,  do  we?  No 
more  do  we  tell  the  Germans  what  spies  of  theirs  we  have 
captured.  And,  since  Sir  Joseph  and  his  wife  were  dead,  there 
would  have  been  no  profit  in  publishing  broadcast  the  story 
of  the  battle.  So  they  agreed  to  let  it  be  known  that  they 
died  peacefully  or  rather  painfully  in  their  beds,  of  ptomaine 
poisoning." 

"That's  true,"  said  Mrs.  Prothero.  "That's  what  I  read. 
That's  what  I've  always  understood." 

Now,  curiously,  as  often  happens  in  court,  the  discovery 
that  a  witness  has  stumbled  on  one  truth  in  a  pack  of  lies 
renders  all  he  has  said  authentic  and  shifts  the  guilt  to  the 
other  side.  Marie  Louise  could  feel  the  frost  of  suspicion 
against  her  forming  in  the  air. 

Polly  made  one  more  onset:  "But,  tell  me,  Lady  Clifton- 
Wyatt,  where  was  Marie  Louise  during  all  this  Wild  West 
End  pistol-play?" 

"In  her  room  with  her  lover,"  snarled  Lady  Clifton-Wyatt. 
"The  servants  saw  her  there." 

This  threw  a  more  odious  light  on  Marie  Louise.  She  was 
not  merely  a  nice  clean  spy,  but  a  wanton. 

Polly  groaned:  "Tell  that  to  Scotland  Yard!  I'd  never 
believe  it." 

"Scotland  Yard  knows  it  without  my  telling,"  said  Lady 
Clifton-Wyatt. 

"But  how  did  Marie  Louise  come  to  escape  and  get  to 
America?" 

"Because  England  did  not  want  to  shoot  a  woman,  especially 


134  THE    CUP   OF    FURY 

not  a  young  woman  of  a  certain  prettiness.  So  they  let  her 
go,  when  she  swore  that  she  would  never  return  to  England. 
But  they  did  not  trust  her.  She  is  under  observation  now! 
Your  home  is  watched,  my  dear  Mrs.  Widdicombe,  and  I 
dare  say  there  is  a  man  on  guard  outside  now,  my  dear  Mrs. 
Prothero." 

This  sent  a  chill  along  every  spine.  Marie  Louise  was 
frightened  out  of  her  own  brief  bravado. 

There  was  a  lull  in  the  trial  while  everybody  reveled  in 
horror.  Then  Mrs.  Prothero  spoke  in  a  judicial  tone. 

"And  now,  Miss  Webling,  please  tell  us  your  side  of  all  this. 
What  have  you  to  say  in  your  own  behalf?" 

Marie  Louise's  mouth  suddenly  turned  dry  as  bark;  her 
tongue  was  like  a  dead  leaf.  She  was  inarticulate  with  remem 
brance  of  her  oath  to  Verrinder.  She  just  managed  to  whisper: 

"Nothing!" 

It  sounded  like  an  autumn  leaf  rasping  across  a  stone. 
Polly  cried  out  in  agony: 

"Marie  Louise!" 

Marie  Louise  shook  her  head  and  could  neither  think  nor 
speak.  There  was  a  hush  of  waiting.  It  was  broken  by  the 
voices  of  the  men  strolling  in  together.  They  were  utterly 
unwelcome.  They  stopped  and  stared  at  the  women  all 
staring  at  Marie  Louise. 

Seeing  Davidge  about  to  ask  what  the  tableau  stood  for,  she 
found  voice  to  say: 

"  Mr.  Davidge,  would  you  be  so  good  as  to  take  me  home — 
to  Mrs.  Widdicombe's,  that  is.  I — I  am  a  little  faint." 

"Delighted!  I  mean — I'm  sorry — I'd  be  glad,"  he  stam 
mered,  eager  to  be  at  her  service,  yet  embarrassed  by  the 
sudden  appeal. 

"You'll  pardon  me,  Mrs.  Prothero,  for  running  away!" 

"Of  course,"  said  Mrs.  Prothero,  still  dazed. 

He  bowed  to  her,  and  all  round.  Marie  Louise  nodded  and 
whispered,  "Good  night!"  and  moved  toward  the  door 
waveringly.  Davidge's  heart  leaped  with  pity  for  her. 

Lady  Clifton- Wyatt  checked  him  as  he  hurried  past  her. 

"Oh,  Mr.  Davidge,  I'm  stopping  at  the  Shoreham.  Won't 
you  drop  in  and  have  a  cup  of  tea  with  me  to-morrow  at 
hahf  pahstfah?" 

"Thank  you!    Yes!" 


CHAPTER  VII 

HTHE  intended  victim  of  Lady  Clifton-Wyatt's  little  lynching- 
1  bee  walked  away,  holding  her  head  high.  But  she  felt  the 
noose  still  about  her  neck  and  wondered  when  the  rope  would 
draw  her  back  and  up. 

Marie  Louise  marched  through  Mrs.  Prothero's  hall  in  ex 
cellent  form,  with  just  the  right  amount  of  dizziness  to  justify 
her  escape  on  tne  plea  of  sudden  illness.  The  butler,  like  a 
benign  destiny,  opened  the  door  silently  and  let  her  out  into 
the  open  as  once  before  in  London  a  butler  had  opened  a 
door  and  let  her  into  the  welcome  refuge  of  walls. 

She  gulped  the  cool  night  air  thirstily,  and  it  gave  her  cour 
age.  But  it  gave  her  no  wisdom.  She  had  indeed  got  away 
from  Lady  Clifton-Wyatt's  direct  accusation  of  being  a  spy 
and  she  had  brought  with  her  unscathed  the  only  man  whose 
good  opinion  was  important  to  her.  But  she  did  not  know 
what  she  wanted  to  do  with  him,  except  that  she  did  not  want 
him  to  fall  into  Lady  Clifton-Wyatt's  hands — in  which  she 
had  left  her  reputation. 

Polly  Widdicombe  would  have  gone  after  Marie  Louise 
forthwith,  but  Polly  did  not  intend  to  leave  her  pet  foewoman 
in  possession  of  the  field — not  that  she  loved  Marie  Louise 
more,  but  that  she  loved  Lady  Clifton-Wyatt  less.  Polly 
was  dazed  and  bewildered  by  Marie  Louise's  defection,  but 
she  would  not  accept  Lady  Clifton-Wyatt's  version  of  this 
story  or  of  any  other. 

Besides,  Polly  gleaned  that  Marie  Louise  wanted  to  be 
alone,  and  she  knew  that  the  best  gift  friendship  can  be 
stow  at  times  is  solitude.  The  next  best  gift  is  defense 
in  absence.  Polly  announced  that  she  would  not  permit 
her  friend  to  be  traduced;  and  Lady  Clifton-Wyatt,  seeing 
that  the  men  had  flocked  in  from  the  dining-room  and 
knowing  that  men  always  discount  one  woman's  attack  on 


i36  THE    CUP    OF    FURY 

another  as  mere   cattiness,  assumed  her  most  angelic  mien 
and  changed  the  subject. 

As  usual  in  retreats,  the  first  problem  was  transportation. 
Marie  Louise  found  herself  and  Davidge  outside  Mrs.  Pro- 
thero's  door,  with  no  means  of  getting  to  Rosslyn.  She  had 
come  in  the  Widdicombe  car;  Davidge  had  come  in  a  hotel 
cab  and  sent  it  away.  Luckily  at  last  a  taxi  returning  to  the 
railroad  terminal  whizzed  by.  Davidge  yelled  in  vain,  Then 
he  put  his  two  fingers  to  his  mouth  and  let  out  a  short  blast 
that  brought  the  taxi-driver  round.  In  accordance  with  the 
traffic  rules,  he  had  to  make  the  circuit  of  the  big  statue- 
crowned  circle  in  front  of  Mrs.  Prothero's  home,  one  of  those 
numerous  hubs  that  give  Washington  the  effect  of  what  some 
one  called  "revolving  streets." 

When  he  drew  up  at  the  curb  Davidge's  first  question 
was: 

"How's  your  gasolene  supply?" 

"Full  up,  boss." 

Marie  Louise  laughed.  "You  don't  want  to  spend  another 
night  in  a  taxi  with  me,  I  see." 

Davidge  writhed  at  this  deduction.  He  started  to  say, 
"I'd  be  glad  to  spend  the  rest  of  my  life  in  a  taxi  with  you." 
That  sounded  a  little  too  flamboyant,  especially  with  a  driver 
listening  in.  So  he  said  nothing  but  "Huh!" 

He  explained  to  the  driver  the  route  to  Grin  den  Hall,  and 
they  set  forth. 

Marie  Louise  had  a  dilemma  of  her  own.  Lady  Clifton- 
Wyatt  had  had  the  last  word,  and  it  had  been  an  invitation 
to  Davidge  to  call  on  her.  Worse  yet,  he  had  accepted  it. 
Lady  Clifton-Wyatt's  purpose  was,  of  course,  to  rob  Marie 
Louise  of  this  last  friend.  Perhaps  the  wretch  had  a  senti 
mental  interest  in  Davidge,  too.  She  was  a  widow  and  a  man- 
grabber;  she  still  had  a  tyrannic  beauty  and  a  greed  of  con 
quest.  Marie  Louise  was  determined  that  Davidge  should 
not  fall  into  her  clutches,  but  she  could  hardly  exact  a  promise 
from  him  to  stay  away. 

The  taxi  was  crossing  the  aqueduct  bridge  before  she  could 
brave  the  point.  She  was  brazen  enough  to  say,  "You'll 
accept  Lady  Clifton-Wyatt's  invitation  to  tea,  of  course?" 

"Oh,  I  suppose  so,"  said  Davidge.     "No  American  woman 


THE    CUP   OF    FURY  137 

can  resist  a  lord;  so  how  could  an  American  man  resist  a 
Lady?" 

"Oh!" 

This  helpless  syllable  expressed  another  defeat  for  Marie 
Louise..  When  they  reached  the  house  she  bade  him  good 
night  without  making  any  arrangement  for  a  good  morrow, 
though  Davidge  held  her  hand  decidedly  longer  than  ever 
before. 

She  stood  on  the  portico  and  watched  his  cab  drive  off. 
She  gazed  toward  Washington  and  did  not  see  the  dreamy 
constellation  it  made  with  the  shaft  of  the  Monument  ghostly 
luminous  as  if  with  a  phosphorescence  of  its  own.  She  felt 
an  outcast  indeed.  She  imagined  Polly  hurrying  back  to 
ask  questions  that  could  not  be  dodged  any  longer.  She  had 
no  right  to  defend  herself  offensively  from  the  rightful  de 
mands  of  a  friend  and  hostess.  Besides,  the  laws  of  hospitality 
would  not  protect  her  from  Polly's  temper.  Polly  would  have 
a  perfect  right  to  order  her  from  the  house.  And  she  would, 
too,  when  she  knew  everything.  It  would  be  best  to  decamp 
before  being  asked  to. 

Marie  Louise  whirled  and  sped  into  the  house,  rang  for  the 
maid,  and  said: 

"My  trunks!  Please  have  them  brought  down — or  up, 
from  wherever  they  are,  will  you?" 

"Your  trunks,  miss!" 

"And  a  taxicab.     I  shall  have  to  leave  at  once." 

"But — oh,  I  am  sorry.     Shall  I  help  you  pack?'* 

"Thank  you,  no — yes — no!" 

The  maid  went  out  with  eyes  popping,  wondering  what 
earthquake  had  sent  the  guest  home  alone  for  such  a  head 
long  exit. 

Things  flew  in  the  drowsy  house,  and  Marie  Louise's  cham 
ber  looked  like  the  show-room  of  a  commercial  traveler  for  a 
linen-house  when  Polly  appeared  at  the  door  and  gasped: 

' '  What  in  the  name  of —  I  didn't  know  you  were  sick  enough 
to  be  delirious!" 

She  came  forward  through  an  archipelago  of  clothes  to 
where  Marie  Louise  was  bending  over  a  trunk.  Polly  took 
an  armload  of  things  away  from  her  and  put  them  back  in  the 
highboy.  As  she  set  her  arms  akimbo  and  stood  staring  at 
Marie  Louise  with  a  lovable  and  loving  insolence,  she  heard 


i38  THE   CUP   OF    FURY 

the  sound  of  a  car  rattling  round  the  driveway,  and  her  first 
words  were: 

"Who's  coming  here  at  this  hour?" 

"That's  the  taxi  for  me,"  Marie  Louise  explained. 

Polly  turned  to  the  maid,  "Go  down  and  send  it  away — 
no,  tell  the  driver  to  go  to  the  asylum  for  a  strait-jacket." 

The  maid  smiled  and  left.  Marie  Louise  was  afraid  to 
believe  her  own  hopes. 

"You  don't  mean  you  want  me  to  stay,  do  you — not  after 
what  that  woman  said?" 

"Do  you  imagine  for  a  moment,"  returned  Polly,  "that  I'd 
ever  believe  a  word  that  cat  could  utter?  Good  Lord !  if  Lady 
Clifton-Wyatt  told  me  it  was  raining  and  I  could  see  it  was, 
I'd  know  it  wasn't  and  put  down  my  umbrella." 

Marie  Louise  rejoiced  at  the  trust  implied,  but  she  could 
not  make  a  fool  of  so  loyal  a  friend.  She  spoke  with  difficulty : 

"What  if  what  she  said  was  the  truth,  or,  anyway,  a  kind 
of  burlesque  of  it?" 

"Marie  Louise!"  Polly  gasped,  and  plounced  into  a  chair. 
"Tell  me  the  truth  this  minute,  the  true  truth." 

Marie  Louise  was  perishing  for  a  confidante.  She  had  gone 
about  as  far  without  one  as  a  normal  woman  can.  She  sat 
wondering  how  to  begin,  twirling  her  rings  on  her  fingers. 
"Well,  you  see — you  see — it  is  true  that  I'm  not  Sir  Joseph's 
daughter.  I  was  born  in  a  little  village — in  America — Wake- 
field — out  there  in  the  Middle  West.  •  I  ran  away  from  home, 
and—" 

She  hesitated,  blanched,  blushed,  skipped  over  the  years 
she  tried  not  to  think  of  and  managed  never  to  speak  of. 
She  came  down  to: 

"Well,  anyway,  at  last  I  was  in  Berlin — on  the  stage — 

"You  were  an  actress?"  Polly  gasped. 

Marie  Louise  confessed,  "Well,  I'd  hardly  say  that." 

She  told  Polly  what  she  had  told  Mr.  Verrinder  of  the  ap 
pearance  of  Sir  Joseph  and  Lady  Webling,  of  their  thrill  at 
her  resemblance  to  their  dead  daughter,  of  their  plea  that  she 
leave  the  stage  and  enter  their  family,  of  her  new  life,  and 
the  outbreak  of  the  war. 

Major  Widdicombe  pounded  on  the  door  and  said:  "Axe 
you  girls  going  to  talk  all  night?  I've  got  to  get  up  at  seven 
and  save  the  country." 


THECUPOFFURY  139 

Polly  cried  to  him,  "Go  away,'*'  and  to  Marie  Louise,  "Go 
on." 

Marie  Louise  began  again,  but  just  as  she  reached  the  first 
suspicions  of  Sir  Joseph's  loyalty  she  remembered  the  oath 
she  had  plighted  to  Verrinder  and  stopped  short. 

"I  forgot!     I  can't!" 

Polly  groaned:  "Oh,  my  God!  You're  not  going  to  stop 
there!  I  loathe  serials." 

Marie  Louise  shook  her  head.  "If  only  I  could  tell  you; 
but  I  just  can't!  That's  all;  I  can't!" 

Polly  turned  her  eyes  up  in  despair.  "Well,  I  might  as 
well  go  to  bed,  I  suppose.  But  I  sha'n't  sleep  a  wink.  Tell 
me  one  thing,  though.  You  weren't  really  a  German  spy, 
were  you?" 

"No,  no!    Of  course  not!    I  loathe  everything  German." 

"Well,  let  the  rest  rest,  then.  So  long  as  Lady  Clifton- 
Wyatt  is  a  liar  I  can  stand  the  strain.  If  you  had  been  a 
spy,  I  suppose  I'd  have  to  shoot  you  or  something;  but  so 
long  as  you're  not,  you  don't  budge  out  of  this  house.  Is 
that  understood?" 

Marie  Louise  nodded  with  a  pathetic  gratitude,  and  Polly 
stamped  a  kiss  on  her  brow  like  a  notarial  seal. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

'""THE  next  morning's  paper  announced  that  spring  had  offi- 
1  cially  arrived  and  been  recognized  at  the  Capitol — a  cer 
tain  Senator  had  taken  off  his  wig.  Washington  accepted 
this  as  the  sure  sign  that  the  weather  was  warm.  It  would 
not  be  officially  autumn  till  that  wig  fell  back  into  place. 

There  were  less  formal  indications:  for  instance,  the  an 
nual  flower-duel  between  the  two  terraces  on  Massachusetts 
Avenue.  The  famous  Embassy  Terrace  forsythias  began  it, 
and  flaunted  little  fringes  of  yellow  glory.  The  slopes  of  the 
Louise  Home  replied  by  setting  their  magnolia-trees  on  fire 
with  flowers  like  lamps,  flowers  that  hurried  out  ahead  of 
their  own  leaves  and  then  broke  and  covered  the  ground  with 
great  petals  of  shattered  porcelain.  The  Embassy  Terrace 
put  out  lamps  of  its  own  closer  to  the  ground,  but  more  gor 
geous — irises  in  a  row  of  blue,  blue  footlights. 

The  Louise  Home,  where  gentlewomen  of  better  days,  am 
bassadresses  of  an  earlier  regime,  kept  their  state,  had  the  last 
word,  the  word  that  could  not  be  bettered,  for  it  uttered  wis 
taria,  wistful  lavender  clusters  weeping  from  the  trellises  in 
languorous  grace. 

Marie  Louise,  looking  from  her  open  window  in  Rossi yn, 
felt  in  the  wind  a  sense  of  stroking  fingers.  The  trees  were 
brisk  with  hope.  The  river  went  its  way  in  a  more  sparkling 
flow.  The  air  blew  from  the  very  fountains  of  youth  with  a 
teasing  blarney.  She  thought  of  Ross  Davidge  and  smiled 
tenderly  to  remember  his  amiable  earnestness.  But  she 
frowned  to  remember  his  engagement  with  Lady  Clifton- 
Wyatt.  She  wondered  what  excuse  she  could  invent  to  check 
mate  that  woman. 

Suddenly  inspiration  came  to  her.  She  remembered  that 
she  had  forgotten  to  pay  Davidge  for  the  seat  he  surrendered 
her  in  the  chair-car.  She  telephoned  him  at  his  hotel.  He 
was  out.  She  pursued  him  by  wire  travel  till  she  found  him 
in  an  office  of  the  Shipping  Board.  He  talked  on  the  corner  of 


THE    CUP    OF    FURY  141 

a  busy  man's  desk.  She  heard  the  busy  man  say  with  a 
taunting  voice,  "A  lady  for  you,  Davidge." 

She  could  hear  the  embarrassment  in  his  voice.  She  was 
in  for  it  now,  and  she  felt  silly  when  she  explained  why  she 
bothered  him.  But  she  was  stubborn,  too.  When  he  under 
stood,  he  laughed  with  the  constraint  of  a  man  bandying  en 
forced  gallantries  on  another  man's  telephone. 

"I'd  hate  to  be  as  honest  as  all  that." 

"It's  not  honesty,"  she  persisted.  "It's  selfishness.  I 
can't  rest  while  the  debt  is  on  my  mind." 

He  was  perplexed.  "I've  got  to  see  several  men  on  the 
Shipping  Board.  There's  a  big  fight  on  between  the  wooden- 
ship  fellows  and  the  steel-ship  men,  and  I'm  betwixt  and  be 
tween  'em.  I  won't  have  time  to  run  out  to  see  you." 

"I  shouldn't  dream  of  asking  you.  I  was  coming  in  to 
town,  anyway." 

"Oh!    Well,  then — well — er — when  can  I  meet  you?" 

"Whenever  you  say !  The  Willard  at —  When  shall  you  be 
free?" 

"Not  before  four  and  then  only  for  half  an  hour." 

"Four  it  is." 

"Fine!  Thank  you  ever  so  much.  I'll  buy  me  a  lot  of 
steel  with  all  that  money  you  owe  me." 

Marie  Louise  put  up  the  receiver.  People  have  got  so 
used  to  the  telephone  that  they  can  see  by  it.  Marie  Louise 
could  visualize  Davidge  angry  with  embarrassment,  confront 
ing  the  important  man  whose  office  he  had  desecrated  with 
this  silly  hammockese.  She  felt  that  she  had  made  herself 
a  nuisance  and  lost  a  trick.  She  had  taken  a  deuce  with  her 
highest  trump  and  had  not  captured  the  king. 

Furthermore,  to  keep  Davidge  from  meeting  Lady  Clifton- 
Wyatt  would  be  only  to-day's  battle.  There  would  still  be 
to-morrows  and  the  day-afters.  Lady  Clifton-Wyatt  had 
declared  herself  openly  hostile  to  Marie  Louise,  and  would 
get  her  sooner  or  later.  Flight  from  Washington  would  be 
the  only  safety. 

But  Marie  Louise  did  not  want  to  leave  Washington.  She 
loved  Washington  and  the  opportunities  it  offered  a  woman 
to  do  important  work  in  the  cosmopolitan  whirl  of  its  popu 
lace.  But  she  could  not  live  on  at  Polly  Widdicombe's 
forever. 


i42  THE    CUP    OF    FURY 

Marie  Louise  decided  that  her  hour  had  struck.  She  must 
find  a  nook  of  her  own.  And  she  would  have  to  live  in  it  all 
by  herself.  Who  was  there  to  live  with?  She  felt  horribly 
deserted  in  life.  She  had  looked  at  numerous  houses  and 
apartments  from  time  to  time.  Apartments  were  costlier  and 
fewer  than  houses.  Since  she  was  doomed  to  live  alone,  any 
way,  she  might  as  well  have  a  house.  Her  neighbors  would 
more  easily  be  kept  aloof. 

She  sought  a  real-estate  agent,  Mr.  Hailstorks,  of  the  sort 
known  as  affable.  But  the  dwellings  he  had  to  show  were  not 
even  that.  Places  she  had  found  not  altogether  odious  before 
were  rented  now.  Places  that  her  heart  went  out  to  to-day 
proved  to  have  been  rented  yesterday. 

Finally  she  ran  across  a  residence  of  a  sort.  She  sighed 
to  Mr.  Hailstorks: 

"Well,  a  carpenter  made  it — so  let  it  pass  for  a  house.  I'll 
take  it  if  it  has  a  floor.  I'm  like  Gelett  Burgess:  'I  don't  so 
much  care  for  a  door,  but  this  crawling  around  without 
touching  the  ground  is  getting  to  be  quite  a  bore.'" 

"Yes,  ma'am,"  said  Mr.  Hailstorks,  bewilderedly. 

He  unlocked  the  door  of  somebody's  tenantless  ex-home 
with  its  lonely  furniture,  and  Marie  Louise  intruded,  as  one 
does,  on  the  chairs,  rugs,  pictures,  and  vases  that  other  people 
have  been  born  with,  have  achieved,  or  have  had  thrust  upon 
them.  She  wondered,  as  one  does,  what  sort  of  beings  they 
could  have  been  that  had  selected  such  things  to  live  among, 
and  what  excuse  they  had  had  for  them. 

Mr.  Hailstorks  had  a  surprise  in  store  for  her.  He  led  her 
to  the  rear  of  the  house  and  raised  a  shade.  Instead  of  the 
expectable  back  yard,  Marie  Louise  was  startled  to  see  a  noble 
landscape  leap  into  view.  The  house  loomed  over  a  precipi 
tous  descent  into  a  great  valley.  A  stream  ran  far  below,  and 
then  the  cliffs  rose  again  opposite  in  a  succession  of  uplifting 
terraces  that  reminded  her  somehow  of  Richmond  Hill  superb 
ly  built  up  above  the  silver  Thames. 

"Whatever  is  all  that?"  she  cried. 

"Rock  Creek  Park,  ma'am,"  said  Mr.  Hailstorks,  who  had 
a  sincere  real-estately  affection  for  parks,  since  they  raised 
the  price  of  adjoining  property  and  made  renting  easier. 

"And  what's  the  price  of  all  this  grandeur?" 

"Only  three  hundred  a  month,"  said  Mr.  Hailstorks. 


THE   CUP   OF    FURY  143 

"Only!"  gasped  Marie  Louise. 

"It  will  be  four  hundred  in  a  week  or  two — yes  ma'am," 
said  Mr.  Hailstorks. 

So  Marie  Louise  seized  it  before  its  price  rose  any  farther^ 

She  took  a  last  look  at  Rock  Creek  Park,  henceforth  her 
private  game-preserve.  As  she  stared,  an  idea  came  to  her. 
She  needed  one.  The  park,  it  occurred  to  her,  was  an  excel 
lent  wilderness  to  get  lost  in — with  Ross  Davidge. 

She  was  late  to  her  meeting  with  Davidge — not  uninten 
tionally.  He  was  waiting  on  the  steps  of  the  hotel,  smoking, 
when  she  drove  up  in  the  car  she  had  bought  for  her  Motor 
Corps  work. 

He  said  what  she  hoped  he  would  say: 

"I  didn't  know  you  drove  so  well." 

She  quoted  a  popular  phrase:  "'You  don't  know  the  half 
of  it,  dearie.'  Hop  in,  and  I'll  show  you." 

He  thought  of  Lady  Clifton-Wyatt,  and  Marie  Louise  knew 
he  thought  of  her.  But  he  was  not  hero  or  coward  enough  to 
tell  a  woman  that  he  had  an  engagement  with  another  woman. 
She  pretended  to  have  forgotten  that  he  had  told  her,  though 
she  could  think  of  little  else.  She  whisked  round  the  corner  of 
I  Street,  or  Eye  Street,  and  thence  up  Sixteenth  Street,  fast 
and  far. 

She  was  amazed  at  her  own  audacity,  and  Davidge  could 
not  make  her  out.  She  had  a  scared  look  that  puzzled  him. 
She  was  really  thinking  that  she  was  the  most  unconscionable 
kidnapper  that  ever  ran  off  with  some  other  body's  child.  He 
could  hardly  dun  her  for  the  money,  and  she  had  apparently 
forgotten  it  again. 

They  were  well  to  the  north  when  she  said: 

"Do  you  know  Rock  Creek  Park?" 

"No,  I've  never  been  in  it." 

"Would  you  like  a  glimpse?  I  think  it's  the  prettiest  park 
in  the  world." 

She  looked  at  her  watch  with  that  twist  of  the  wrist  now 
becoming  almost  universal  and  gasped : 

"Oh,  dear!  I  must  turn  back.  But  it's  just  about  as  short 
to  go  through  the  park.  I  mustn't  make  you  late  to  Lady 
Clifton-Wyatt's  tea." 

He  could  find  absolutely  nothing  to  say  to  that  except, 
10 


144  THE    CUP   OF    FURY 

"It's  mighty  pretty  along  here."  She  turned  into  Blagdon 
Road  and  coasted  down  the  long,  many-turning  dark  glade. 
At  the  end  she  failed  to  steer  to  the  south.  The  creek 
itself  crossed  the  road.  She  drove  the  car  straight  through 
its  lilting  waters.  There  was  exhilaration  in  the  splashing 
charge  across  the  ford.  Then  the  road  wound  along  the  bank, 
curling  and  writhing  with  it  gracefully  through  thick  forests, 
over  bridges  and  once  more  right  through  the  bright  flood. 
The  creek  scrambling  among  its  piled-up  boulders  was  too 
gay  to  suggest  any  amorous  mood,  and  Marie  Louise  did 
not  quite  dare  to  drive  the  car  down  to  the  water's  edge  at 
any  of  the  little  green  plateaus  where  picnics  were  being 
celebrated  on  the  grass. 

"I  always  lose  my  way  in  this  park,"  she  said.  "I  expect 
I'm  lost  now." 

She  began  to  regret  Davidge's  approaching  absence,  with 
a  strange  loneliness.  He  was  becoming  tenderly  necessary  to 
her.  She  sighed,  hardly  meaning  to  speak  aloud,  "Too  bad 
you're  going  away  so  soon." 

He  was  startled  to  find  that  his  departure  meant  something 
to  her.  He  spoke  with  an  affectionate  reassurance. 

She  stopped  the  car  on  a  lofty  plateau  where  several  ladies 
and  gentlemen  were  exercising  their  horses  at  hurdle-jumping. 
The  elan  of  rush,  plunge  and  recovery  could  not  excite  Mamise 
now. 

"I'll  tell  you  what  we'll  do.  The  next  time  I  come  to 
Washington  you  drive  me  over  to  my  shipyard  and  I'll  show 
you  the  new  boat  and  the  new  yard  for  the  rest  of  the  flock." 

"That  would  be  glorious.  I  should  like  to  know  something 
about  ships." 

"I  can  teach  you  all  I  know  in  a  little  while." 

"You  know  all  there  is  to  know,  don't  you?" 

"Lord  help  us,  I  should  say  not!  I  knew  a  little  about  the 
old  methods,  but  they're  all  done  away  with.  The  fabricated 
ship  is  an  absolute  novelty.  The  old  lines  are  gone,  and  the 
old  methods.  What  few  ship-builders  we  had  are  trying  to 
forget  what  they  know.  Everybody  is  green.  We  had  to 
find  out  for  ourselves  and  pass  it  along  to  the  foremen,  and 
they  hand  it  out  to  the  laborers. 

"The  whole  art  is  in  a  confusion.  There  is  going  to  be  a 
ghastly  lot  of  mistakes  and  waste  and  scandal,  but  if  we  win 


THE    CUP   OF    FURY  145 

out  there'll  be  such  a  cloudburst  that  the  Germans  will  think 
it's  raining  ships.  Niagara  Falls  will  be  nothing  to  the  cascade 
of  iron  hulls  going  overboard.  Von  Tirpitz  with  his  ruthless 
policy  will  be  like  the  old  woman  who  tried  to  sweep  the  tide 
back  with  a  broom." 

He  grew  so  fervent  in  his  vision  of  the  new  creation  that  he 
hardly  saw  the  riders  as  they  stormed  the  hurdles.  Marie 
Louise  took  fire  from  his  glow  and  forgot  the  petty  motive 
that  had  impelled  her  to  bring  him  to  this  place.  Suddenly  he 
realized  how  shamelessly  eloquent  he  had  been,  and  sub 
sided  with  a  slump. 

"What  a  bore  I  am  to  tell  all  this  to  a  woman!" 

She  rose  at  that.  "The  day  has  passed  when  a  man  can 
apologize  for  talking  business  to  a  woman.  I've  been  in  Eng 
land  for  years,  you  know,  and  the  women  over  there  are  doing 
all  the  men's  work  and  getting  better  wages  at  it  than  the  men 
ever  did.  After  the  war  they'll  never  go  back  to  their  tatting 
and  prattle.  I'm  going  to  your  shipyard  and  have  a  look-in, 
but  not  the  way  a  pink  debutante  follows  a  naval  officer  over 
a  battle-ship,  staring  at  him  and  not  at  the  works.  I'm  going 
on  business,  and  if  I  like  ship-building,  I  may  take  it  up." 

"Great!"  he  laughed,  and  slapped  her  hand  where  it  lay  on 
the  wheel.  He  apologized  again  for  his  roughness. 

"I'll  forgive  anything  except  an  apology,"  she  said. 

As  she  looked  proudly  down  at  the  hand  he  had  honored 
with  a  blow  as  with  an  accolade  she  saw  by  her  watch  that 
it  was  after  six. 

"Great  Heavens!  it's  six  and  more!"  she  cried.  "Lady 
Clifton-Wyatt  will  never  forgive  you — or  me.  I'll  take  you 
to  her  at  once." 

"Never  mind  Lady  Clifton-Wyatt,"  he  said.  "But  I've 
got  another  engagement  for  dinner — with  a  man,  at  half  past 
six.  I  wish  I  hadn't." 

They  were  drifting  with  the  twilight  into  an  elegiac  mood, 
suffering  the  sweet  sorrow  of  parting. 

The  gloaming  steeped  the  dense  woods,  and  the  romance  of 
sunset  and  gathering  night  saddened  the  business  man's  soul, 
but  wakened  a  new  and  unsuspected  woman  in  Marie  Louise. 

Her  fierce  imaginations  were  suddenly  concerned  with  con 
quests  of  ambition,  not  of  love.  So  fresh  a  realm  was  opened 
to  her  that  she  was  herself  renewed  and  restored  to  that  boyish- 


i46  THE    CUP    OF    FURY 

girlish  estate  of  young  womanhood  before  love  has  educated  it 
to  desire  and  the  slaveries  of  desire.  The  Aphrodite  that  lurks 
in  every  woman  had  been  put  to  flight  by  the  Diana  that  is 
also  there. 

Davidge  on  the  other  hand  had  warmed  toward  Marie 
Louise  suddenly,  as  he  saw  how  ardent  she  could  be.  He  had 
known  her  till  now  only  in  her  dejected  and  terrified,  distracted 
humors.  Now  he  saw  her  on  fire,  and  love  began  to  blaze 
within  him. 

He  felt  his  first  impulse  to  throw  an  arm  about  her  and  draw 
her  to  his  breast,  but  though  the  solitude  was  complete  and  the 
opportunity  perfect,  he  saw  that  she  was  in  no  spirit  for 
dalliance.  There  is  no  colder  chaperon  for  a  woman  than  a 
new  ambition  to  accomplish  something  worth  while. 

As  they  drew  up  at  the  New  Willard  she  was  saying: 

"Telephone  the  minute  you  come  to  town  again.  Good-by. 
I'm  late  to  dinner." 

She  meant  that  she  was  late  to  life,  late  to  a  career. 

Davidge  stared  at  her  in  wonderment  as  she  bent  to  throw 
the  lever  into  first  speed.  She  roughed  it  in  her  impatience, 
and  the  growl  of  the  gear  drowned  the  sound  of  another  man's 
voice  calling  her  name.  This  man  ran  toward  her,  but  she 
did  not  notice  him  and  got  away  before  he  could  overtake  her. 

Davidge  was  jostled  by  him  as  he  ran,  and  noted  that  he 
called  Miss  Webling  "  Mees  Vapelink."  The  Teutonic  intona 
tion  did  not  fall  pleasantly  on  the  American  ear  at  that  time. 
Washington  was  a  forbidden  city  to  Germanic  men  and  soon 
would  banish  the  enemy  women,  too. 

The  stranger  took  refuge  on  the  sidewalk,  and  his  curses  were 
snarly  with  the  Teutonic  r.  Davidge  studied  him  and  began 
to  remember  him.  He  had  seen  him  with  Marie  Louise 
somewhere.  Suddenly  his  mind,  ransacking  the  filing-cabinet 
of  his  memory,  turned  up  a  picture  of  Nicky  Easton  at  the  side 
of  Marie  Louise  at  the  dinner  in  Sir  Joseph's  home.  He  could 
not  remember  the  name,  but  a  man  has  a  ready  label  for  any 
body  he  hates. 

He  began  to  worry  now.  Who  was  this  spick  foreigner  who 
ran  hooting  after  her  ?  It  was  not  like  Davidge  to  be  either  curi 
ous  or  suspicious.  But  love  was  beginning  its  usual  hocus-pocus 
with  character  and  turning  a  tired  business  man  into  a  restless 
swain. 


THE    CUP   OF    FURY  147 

Davidge  resented  Eastern's  claim  on  Marie  Louise,  whatever 
it  was,  as  an  invasion  of  some  imagined  property  right  of  his 
own,  or  at  least  of  some  option  he  had  secured  somehow.  He 
was  alarmed  at  the  Teutonic  accent  of  the  interloper.  He 
began  to  take  heed  of  how  little  he  knew  of  Marie  Louise, 
after  all.  He  recalled  Sir  Joseph  Webling's  German  accent. 
An  icy  fear  chilled  him. 

His  important  business  parley  was  conducted  with  an  ab 
sent-mindedness  that  puzzled  his  host,  the  eminent  iron 
master,  Jacob  Cruit,  who  had  exchanged  an  income  of  a 
million  a  year  and  dictatorial  powers  for  a  governmental  wage 
of  one  dollar  per  annum,  no  authority,  no  gratitude,  and  end 
less  trouble. 

Davidge's  nead  was  buzzing  with  thoughts  in  which  Cruit 
had  no  part: 

"Can  she  be  one  of  those  horrible  women  who  have 
many  lovers?  Is  she  a  woman  of  affairs?  What  is  all  this 
mystery  about  her?  What  was  she  so  afraid  of  the  night  she 
would  not  stop  at  Mrs.  Widdicombe's?  Why  was  she  so  upset 
by  the  appearance  of  Lady  Clifton-Wyatt?  Why  was  she  in 
such  a  hurry  to  get  me  away  from  Mrs.  Prothero's  dinner, 
and  to  keep  me  from  keeping  my  engagement  with  Lady 
Clifton-Wyatt  ?  Why  so  much  German  association  ? ' ' 

He  thought  of  dozens  of  explanations,  most  of  them  wild, 
but  none  of  them  so  wild  as  the  truth — that  Marie  Louise  was 
cowering  under  the  accusation  of  being  a  German  agent. 

He  resolved  that  he  would  forget  Marie  Louise,  discharge 
her  from  the  employment  of  his  thoughts.  Yet  that  night 
as  he  lay  cooking  in  his  hot  berth  he  thought  of  Marie  Louise 
instead  of  ships.  None  of  his  riot  of  thoughts  was  so  fan 
tastic  as  the  fact  that  she  was  even  then  thinking  of  ships 
and  not  of  him. 

That  night  Marie  Louise  ransacked  the  library  that  the 
owner  of  Grinden  Hall  had  left  with  the  other  furniture.  Some 
member  of  the  family  had  been  a  cadet  at  Annapolis,  and  his 
old  text-books  littered  the  shelves.  Marie  Louise  selected  and 
bore  away  an  armload,  not  of  novels,  but  of  books  whose  very 
backs  had  repelled  her  before.  They  were  the  very  latest  ro 
mance  to  her  now. 

The  authors  of  An  Elementary  Manual  for  the  Deviation  of 
the  Compass  in  Iron  Ships,  The  Marine  Steam-engine,  and 


X48  THE    CUP   OF    FURY 

An  Outline  of  Ship-building,  Theoretical  and  Practical,  could 
hardly  have  dreamed  that  their  works  would  one  night  go  up 
stairs  in  the  embrace  of  a  young  woman's  arms.  The  books 
would  have  struck  a  naval  architect  as  quaintly  old-fashioned, 
but  to  Marie  Louise  they  were  as  full  of  news  as  the  latest 
evening  extra.  The  only  one  she  could  understand  with  ease 
was  Captain  Samuels's  From  the  Forecastle  to  the  Cabin,  and 
she  was  thrilled  by  his  account  of  the  struggles  of  his  youth, 
his  mutinies,  his  champion  of  the  Atlantic,  the  semi-clipper 
Dreadnought,  but  most  of  all,  by  his  glowing  picture  of  the 
decay  of  American  marine  glory. 

She  read  till  she  could  sit  up  no  longer.  Then  she  undressed 
and  dressed  for  sleep,  snapped  on  the  reading-lamp,  and  took 
up  another  book,  Bowditch's  American  Navigation.  It  was 
the  "Revised  Edition  of  1883,"  but  it  was  fresh  sensation  to 
her.  She  lay  prone  like  the  reading  Magdalen  in  the  picture, 
her  hair  pouring  down  over  her  shoulders,  her  bosom  pillowed 
on  the  volume  beneath  her  eyes. 


CHAPTER   IX 

"P)ASSENGERS  arriving  at  Washington  in  the  early  morn- 
1  ing  may  keep  their  cubbyholes  until  seven,  no  later.  By 
half  past  seven  they  must  be  off  the  car.  Jake  Nuddle  was  an 
ugly  riser.  He  had  always  regarded  the  alarm-clock  as  the 
most  hateful  of  all  the  inventions  of  capitalists  to  enslave  the 
poor.  Jake  had  strange  ideas  of  capitalists,  none  stranger  than 
that  they  are  luxurious  persons  who  sleeo  late  and  knock  off 
work  early. 

Waking  Jake  was  one  of  the  most  dangerous  of  his  wife's 
prerogatives.  On  this  morning,  if  he  had  been  awaker  he  would 
have  bitten  off  the  black  hand  that  reached  into  his  berth  and 
twitched  the  sheet  at  seven  of  a  non-working  day.  The  voice 
that  murmured  appealingly  through  the  curtains,  "S'em 
o'clock,  please!"  did  not  please  Jake  at  all. 

He  cursed  his  annoying  and  nudging  wife  a  few  times 
heartily,  then  began  to  make  his  acutely  unbeautiful  toilet. 
In  the  same  small  wheeled  hotel  capitalists,  statesmen,  ma 
trons,  and  misses  were  dressing  in  quarters  just  as  strait. 
Jake  and  his  wife  had  always  got  in  each  other's  way,  but 
never  more  cumbersomely  than  now.  Jake  found  his  wife's 
stockings  when  he  sought  his  socks.  Her  corset-strings  seemed 
to  be  everywhere.  Whatever  he  laid  hold  of  brought  along 
her  corset.  He  thrust  his  head  and  arms  into  something 
white  and  came  out  of  it  sputtering: 

"That's  your  damned  shimmy.  Where's  my  damned 
shirt?" 

Somehow  they  made  it  at  last,  got  dressed  and  washed 
somehow  and  left  the  caravansary.  Mrs.  Nuddle  carried  the 
heavier  baggage.  They  had  breakfast  at  the  lunch-counter; 
then  they  went  out  and  looked  at  the  Capitol.  It  inspired  in 
Jake's  heart  no  national  reverence.  He  said  to  his  awestruck 
wife: 

"There's  where  that  gang  of  robbers,  the  Congersmen,  meet 


i5o  THE    CUP   OF    FURY 

and  agree  on  their  hold-ups.  They're  all  the  hirelings  of  the 
capitalists. 

"They  voted  for  this  rotten  war  without  consulting  the 
people.  They  didn't  dare  consult  'em.  They  knew  the 
people  wasn't  in  favor  of  no  such  crime.  But  the  Congersmen 
get  their  orders  from  Wall  Street,  and  them  brokers  wanted 
the  war  because  they  owned  so  much  stock  that  wouldn't  be 
worth  the  paper  it  was  printed  on  unless  the  United  States 
joined  the  Allies  and  collected  for  'em  off  Germany." 

It  was  thus  that  Jake  and  his  kind  regarded  the  avalanche  of 
norrinc  woe  that  German  ambition  spilled  upon  the  world 
and  kept  rolling  down  from  the  mountain-tops  of  heaped-up 
munitions.  It  was  thus  that  they  contemplated  the  mangled 
villages  of  innocent  Belgium,  the  slavery-drives  in  the  French 
towns,  the  windrows  of  British  dead,  the  increasing  lust  of 
conquest,  which  grew  by  what  it  fed  on,  till  at  last  America, 
driven  frantic  by  the  endless  carnage,  took  up  belatedly  the 
gigantic  task  of  throwing  back  the  avalanche  across  the  moun 
tain  to  the  other  side  before  it  engulfed  and  ruined  the  world. 
While  Europe  agonized  in  torments  unthinkable,  immeasur 
able,  and  yet  mysteriously  endurable  only  because  there  was 
no  escape  visible,  the  Jake  Nuddles,  illiterate  and  literate, 
croaked  their  batrachian  protest  against  capital,  bewailed  the 
lot  of  imaginary  working-men,  and  belied  the  life  of  real 
working-men. 

Staring  at  the  Capitol,  which  means  so  much  nobility  to 
him  who  has  the  nobility  to  understand  the  dream  that  raised 
it,  he  burlesqued  its  ideals.  Cruel,  corrupt,  lazy,  and  sloven 
of  soul,  he  found  there  what  he  knew  best  because  it  was  his 
own.  Aping  a  sympathy  he  could  not  feel,  he  grew  maudlin: 

"So  they  drag  our  poor  boys  from  their  homes  in  droves 
and  send  'em  off  to  the  slaughter-house  in  France — all  for 
money!  Anything  to  grind  down  the  honest  workman  into 
the  dust,  no  matter  how  many  mothers'  hearts  they  break!" 

Jake  was  one  of  those  who  never  express  sympathy  for  any 
body  except  in  the  course  of  a  tirade  against  somebody  else. 
He  had  small  use  for  wives,  mothers,  or  children  except  as 
clubs  to  pound  rich  men  with.  His  wife,  who  knew  him  all 
too  well,  was  not  impressed  by  his  eloquence.  Her  typical  an 
swer  to  his  typical  tirade  was,  "I  wonder  how  on  earth  we're 
goin'  to  find  Mamise." 


THE    CUP   OF    FURY  151 

Jake  groaned  at  the  anticlimax  to  his  lofty  flight,  but  he 
realized  that  the  main  business  before  the  house  was  what 
his  wife  propounded. 

He  remembered  seeing  an  Information  Bureau  sign  in  the 
station.  He  had  learned  from  the  newspaper  in  which  he  had 
seen  Mamise's  picture  that  she  was  visiting  Major  Widdi- 
combe.  He  had  written  the  name  down  on  the  tablets  of  his 
memory,  and  his  first  plan  was  to  find  Major  Widdicombe. 
Jake  had  a  sort  of  wolfish  cunning  in  tracing  people  he  wanted 
to  meet.  He  could  always  find  anybody  who  might  lend  him 
money.  He  had  mysterious  difficulties  in  tracing  some  one 
who  could  give  him  work. 

He  left  his  wife  to  simmer  in  the  station  while  he  set  forth 
on  a  scouting  expedition.  After  much  travel  he  found  at  last 
the  office  of  the  Ordnance  Department,  in  which  Major  Wid 
dicombe  toiled,  and  he  appeared  at  length  at  Major  Widdi- 
combe's  desk. 

Jake  was  cautious.  He  would  not  state  his  purpose.  He 
hardly  dared  to  claim  relationship  with  Miss  Webling  until 
he  was  positive  that  she  was  his  sister-in-law.  Noting  Jake's 
evasiveness,  the  Major  discreetly  evaded  the  request  for  his 
guest's  address.  He  would  say  no  more  than: 

"Miss  Webling  is  coming  down  to  lunch  with  me  at  the — 
that  is  with  my  wife.  I'll  tell  her  you're  looking  for  her;  if 
she  wants  to  meet  you,  I'll  tell  you,  if  you  come  back  here." 

"All  right,  mucher  bliged,"  said  Jake.  Baffled  and  without 
further  recourse,  he  left  the  Major's  presence,  since  there 
seemed  to  be  nothing  else  to  do.  But  once  outside,  he  felt  that 
there  had  been  something  highly  unsatisfactory  about  the  par 
ley.  He  decided  to  imitate  Mary's  little  lamb  and  to  hang 
about  the  building  till  the  Major  should  appear.  In  an  hour  or 
two  he  was  rewarded  by  seeing  Widdicombe  leave  the  door 
and  step  into  an  automobile.  Jake  heard  him  tell  the  driver, 
"The  Shoreham." 

Jake  walked  to  the  notel  and  saw  Marie  Louise  seated  at 
a  table  by  a  window.  He  recognized  her  by  her  picture  and 
was  duly  triumphant.  He  was  ready  to  advance  and  demand 
recognition.  Then  he  realized  that  he  could  make  no  claim 
on  her  without  his  awful  wife's  corroboration.  He  took  a 
street-car  back  to  the  station  and  found  his  nominal  helpmeet 
sitting  just  where  he  had  left  her. 


i52  THE    CUP   OF    FURY 

Abbie  had  bought  no  newspaper,  book,  or  magazine  to 
while  away  the  time  with.  She  was  not  impatient  of  idleness. 
It  was  luxury  enough  just  not  to  be  warshin'  clo'es,  cookin' 
vittles,  or  wrastlin'  dishes.  She  took  a  dreamy  content  in 
studying  the  majesty  of  the  architecture,  but  her  interest 
in  it  was  about  that  of  a  lizard  basking  on  a  fallen  column  in 
a  Greek  peristyle.  It  was  warm  and  spacious  and  nobody 
disturbed  her  drowsy  beatitude. 

When  Jake  came  and  summoned  her  she  rose  like  a  rheu 
matic  old  housebound  and  obeyed  her  master's  voice. 

Jake  gave  her  such  a  vote  of  confidence  as  was  implied  in 
letting  her  lug  the  luggage.  It  was  cheaper  for  her  to  carry 
it  than  for  him  to  store  it  in  the  parcel-room.  It  caused  the 
fellow-passengers  in  the  street-car  acute  inconvenience,  but 
Jake  was  superior  to  public  opinion  of  his  wife.  In  such  a 
homely  guise  did  the  fates  approach  Miss  Webling. 


CHAPTER  X 

'"PHE  best  place  for  a  view  is  in  one's  back  yard;  then  it  is 
I  one's  own.  If  it  is  in  the  front  yard,  then  the  house 
is  only  part  of  the  public's  view. 

In  London  Marie  Louise  had  lived  at  Sir  Joseph  Webling's 
home,  its  gray,  fog-stained,  smoked-begrimed  front  flush  with 
the  pavement.  But  back  of  the  house  was  a  high-walled  gar 
den  with  a  fountain  that  never  played.  There  was  a  great  rug 
of  English-green  grass,  very  green  all  winter  and  still  greener 
all  summer.  At  an  appropriate  spot  was  a  tree;  a  tea-table 
sat  under  it;  in  blossom-time  it  sprinkled  pink  petals  on  the 
garden  hats  of  the  women;  and  on  the  grass  they  fell,  to  twist 
Tennyson,  softlier  than  tired  eyelids  on  tired  eyes. 

So  Marie  Louise  adored  her  new  home  with  its  unpromising 
entrance  and  its  superb  surprise  from  the  rear  windows. 
When  she  broke  the  news  to  Polly  Widdicombe,  that  she  was 
leaving  her,  they  had  a  good  fight  over  it.  Yet  Polly  could 
hardly  insist  that  Marie  Louise  stay  with  her  forever,  espe 
cially  when  Marie  Louise  had  a  perfectly  good  home  of  her  own. 

Polly  went  along  for  a  morning  of  reconstruction  work. 
There  were  pictures,  chairs,  cushions,  and  knickknacks  that 
simply  had  to  be  hidden  away.  The  original  tenants  evi 
dently  had  the  theory  that  a  bare  space  on  a  wall  or  a  table 
was  as  indecent  as  on  a  person's  person. 

They  had  taken  crude  little  chromos  and  boxed  them  in 
gaudy  frames,  many  of  whose  atrocities  were  aggravated  by 
panels  of  plush  of  a  color  that  could  hardly  be  described  by 
any  other  name  than  fermented  prune.  Over  the  corner  of 
these  they  had  thrown  "throws"  or  drapes  of  malicious 
magenta  horribly  figured  in  ruthless  incompatibilities. 

Chairs  of  unexplainable  framework  were  upholstered  with 
fabrics  of  studied  delirium.  Every  mantel  was  an  exhibit 
of  models  of  what  not  to  do.  When  Henry  James  said  that 
Americans  had  no  end  of  taste,  but  most  of  it  was  bad,  he 


i54  THE    CUP   OF    FURY 

must  have  based  his  conclusions  on  such  a  conglomerate  as 
this. 

Polly  and  Marie  Louise  found  some  of  the  furniture  bad 
enough  to  be  amusing.  But  they  toted  a  vanload  of  it  into 
closets  and  storerooms.  Where  the  pictures  came  away  they 
left  staring  spaces  of  unfaded  wall-paper.  Still,  they  were 
preferable  to  the  pictures. 

By  noon  the  women  were  exhausted.  They  washed  their 
dust-smutted  hands  and  faces  and  exclaimed  upon  the  black 
water  they  left.  But  the  exercise  had  given  them  appetite, 
and  when  Marie  Louise  locked  the  front  door  she  felt  all  the 
comfort  of  a  householder.  She  had  a  home  of  her  very  own 
to  lock  up,  and  though  she  had  roamed  through  pleasures  and 
palaces,  she  agreed  that,  be  it  ever  so  horrible,  there's  no 
place  like  home. 

She  and  Polly  were  early  to  their  luncheon  engagement  with 
Major  Widdicombe.  Their  appetites  disputed  the  clock. 
Polly  decided  to  telephone  her  husband  for  Heaven's  sake  to 
come  at  once  to  her  rescue. 

While  Polly  was  telephoning  Marie  Louise  sat  waiting  on 
a  divan.  Her  muscles  were  so  tired  that  she  grew  nearly  as 
placidly  animal  as  her  sister  in  the  Pennsylvania  Station. 
She  was  as  different  in  every  other  way  as  possible.  Her  life, 
her  environment,  her  ambitions,  had  been  completely  alien 
to  anything  Mrs.  Nuddle  had  known.  She  had  been  educated 
and  evolved  by  entirely  different  joys  and  sorrows,  fears  and 
successes. 

Mrs.  Nuddle  had  been  afraid  that  her  husband  would  beat 
her  again,  or  kill  one  of  the  children  in  his  rage,  or  get  himself 
sent  to  prison  or  to  the  chair;  Mrs.  Nuddle  had  been  afraid 
that  the  children  would  be  run  over  in  the  street,  would  pull 
a  boilerful  of  boiling  water  over  onto  them,  or  steal,  or  go 
wrong  in  any  of  the  myriad  ways  that  children  have  of  going 
wrong.  Mrs.  Nuddle's  ecstasies  were  a  job  well  done,  a  word 
of  praise  from  a  customer,  a  chance  to  sit  down,  an  interval 
without  pain  or  worry  when  her  children  were  asleep,  or  when 
her  husband  was  working  and  treating  her  as  well  as  one 
treats  an  old  horse. 

Of  such  was  the  kingdom  of  Mrs.  Nuddle. 

Marie  Louise  had  dwelt  in  a  world  no  more  and  no  less 
harrowing,  but  infinitely  unlike.  The  two  sisters  were  no 


THE   CUP   OF   FURY  155 

longer  related  to  each  other  by  any  ties  except  blood  kinship. 
Mrs.  Nuddle  was  a  good  woman  gone  wrong,  Marie  Louise  a 
goodish  woman  gone  variously;  Mrs.  Nuddle  a  poor  adver 
tisement  of  a  life  spent  in  honest  toil,  early  rising,  early  bed 
ding,  churchgoing,  and  rigid  economy;  Marie  Louise  a  most 
attractive  evidence  of  how  much  depends  on  a  careful  car 
riage,  a  cultivated  taste  in  clothes,  and  an  elegant 
acquaintance. 

At  last,  after  years  of  groping  toward  each  other,  the  sisters 
were  to  be  brought  together.  But  there  was  to  be  an  inter 
vention.  Even  while  Marie  Louise  sat  relaxed  in  a  fatigue 
that  she  would  have  called  contentment  trouble  was  stealing 
toward  her. 

The  spider  who  came  and  sat  beside  this  Miss  Muffet  was 
Nicky  Easton.  He  frightened  her,  but  he  would  not  let  her 
run  away. 

As  he  dropped  to  her  side  she  rose  with  a  gasp,  but  he 
pressed  her  back  with  a  hasty  grip  on  her  arm  and  a  mandatory 
prayer: 

"Wait  once,  pleass." 

The  men  who  had  shadowed  Marie  Louise  had  months 
before  given  her  up  as  hopelessly  correct.  But  guardian 
angels  were  still  provided  for  Nicky  Easton;  and  one  of  them, 
seeing  this  meeting,  took  Marie  Louise  back  into  the  select 
coterie  of  the  suspects. 

There's  no  cure  for  your  bodily  aches  and  pains  like  terror. 
It  lifts  the  paralytic  from  his  bed,  makes  the  lame  scurry, 
and  gives  the  blind  eyes  enough  for  running.  Marie  Louise's 
fatigue  fell  from  her  like  a  burden  whose  straps  are  slit. 

When  Nicky  said:  "I  could  not  find  you  in  New  York. 
Now  we  are  here  we  can  have  a  little  talkink,"  she  stammered: 
"Not  here!  Not  now!" 

"Why  not,  pleass?" 

"I  have  an  engagement — a  friend — she  has  just  gone  to 
telephone  a  moment." 

"You  are  ashamed  of  me,  then?" 

She  let  him  have  it.     "  Yes !" 

He  winced  at  the  slap  in  the  face. 

She  went  on:  "Besides,  she  knows  you.  Her  husband  is 
an  officer  in  the  army.  I  can't  talk  to  you  here." 

"Where,  then,  and  when?" 


156  THE    CUP   OF    FURY 

"Any  time-yany  place — but  here." 

"Any  time  is  no  time.     You  tell  me,  or  I  stay  now." 

"Come  to — to  my  house." 

"You  have  a  howiss,  then?" 

"Yes.  I  just  took  it  to-day.  I  shall  be  there  this  after 
noon — at  three,  if  you  will  go." 

"Very  goot.     The  address  is — " 

She  gave  it;  he  repeated  it,  mumbled,  "At  sree  o'clock  I  am 
there,"  and  glided  away  just  as  Polly  returned. 

They  were  eating  a  consomme*  madrile'ne  when  the  Major 
arrived.  He  dutifully  ate  what  his  wife  had  selected  for  him, 
and  listened  amiably  to  what  she  had  to  tell  him  about  her 
morning,  though  he  was  bursting  to  tell  her  about  his. 
Polly  made  a  vivid  picture  of  Marie  Louise's  newjiome,  ending 
with: 

"Everything  on  God's  earth  in  it  except  a  piano  and  a  book." 

This  reminded  Marie  Louise  of  the  books  she  had  read  on 
ship-building,  and  she  asked  if  she  might  borrow  them.  Polly 
made  a  woeful  face  at  this. 

"My  dear!  When  a  woman  starts  to  reading  up  on  a  sub 
ject  a  man  is  interested  in,  she's  lost — and  so  is  he.  Beware 
of  it,  my  dear." 

Tom  demurred:  "Go  right  on,  Marie  Louise,  so  that  you 
can  take  an  intelligent  interest  in  what  your  husband  is 
working  on." 

"My  husband!"  said  Marie  Louise.  "Aren't  you  both  a 
trifle  premature?" 

Polly  went  glibly  on:  "Don't  listen  to  Tom,  my  dear. 
What  does  he  know  about  what  a  man  wants  his  wife  to  take 
an  intelligent  interest  in?  Once  a  woman  knows  about  her 
husband's  business,  he's  finished  with  her  and  ready  for  the 
next.  Tom's  been  trying  to  tell  me  for  ten  years  what  he's 
working  at,  and  I  haven't  the  faintest  idea  yet.  It  always 
gives  him  something  to  hope  for.  When  he  comes  home  of 
evenings  he  can  always  say,  'Perhaps  to-night's  the  night 
when  she'll  listen.'  But  once  you  listen  intelligently  and 
really  understand,  he's  through  with  you,  and  he'll  quit  you 
for  some  pink-cheeked  ignoramus  who  hasn't  heard  about  it 
yet." 

Marie  Louise,  being  a  woman,  knew  how  to  get  her  message 


THE    CUP   OF    FURY  157 

to  another  woman;  the  way  seems  to  be  to  talk  right  through 
her  talk.  The  acute  creatures  have  ears  to  hear  with  and 
mouths  to  talk  with,  and  they  apparently  find  no  difficulty 
in  using  both  at  the  same  time.  Somewhere  along  about  the 
middle  of  Polly's  discourse  Marie  Louise  began  to  answer  it 
before  it  was  finished.  Why  should  she  wait  when  she  knew 
what  was  coming?  So  she  said  contemporaneously  and  co- 
vocally : 

"But  I'm  not  going  to  marry  a  ship-builder,  my  dear. 
Don't  be  absurd!  I'm  not  planning  to  take  an  intelligent 
interest  in  Mr.  Davidge's  business.  I'm  planning  to  take  an 
intelligent  interest  in  my  own.  I'm  going  to  be  a  ship 
builder  myself,  and  I  want  to  learn  the  A  B  C's." 

They  finished  that  argument  at  the  same  time  and  went  on 
together  down  the  next  stretch  in  a  perfect  team: 

"Oh,  well  of  course,  if  "Mr.  Davidge  tells  me," 
that's  the  case,"  asserted  Marie  Louise  explained,  "that 
Polly,  "then  you're  quite  women  are  needed  in  ship- 
crazy — unless  you're  simply  building,  and  that  anybody 
hunting  for  a  new  sensation,  can  learn.  In  fact,  every- 
And  on  that  score  I'll  admit  body  has  to,  anyway;  so 
that  it  sounds  rather  interest-  I've  got  as  good  a  chance  as 
ing.  I  may  take  a  whack  at  a  man.  I'm  as  strong  as  a 
it  myself.  I'm  quite  fed  up  horse.  Fine!  Come  along, 
on  bandages  and  that  sort  of  and  we'll  build  a  U-boat 
thing.  Get  me  a  job  in  the  chaser  together.  Mr.  Dav- 
same  factory  or  whatever  idge  would  be  delighted  to 
they  call  it.  Will  you?"  have  you,  I'm  sure." 

This  was  arrant  hubbub  to  the  mere  man  who  was  not 
capable  of  carrying  on  a  conversation  except  by  the  slow, 
primitive  methods  of  Greek  drama,  strophe  and  antistrophe, 
one  talking  while  the  other  listened,  then  vice  versa. 

So  he  had  time  to  remember  that  he  had  something  to 
remember,  and  to  dig  it  up.  He  broke  in  on  the  dialogue: 

"By  the  way,  that  reminds  me,  Marie  Louise.  There's  a 
man  in  town  looking  for  you." 

"Looking  for  me !"  Marie  Louise  gasped,  alert  as  an  antelope 
at  once.  "What  was  his  name?" 

"I  can't  seem  to  recall  it.     I'll  have  it  in  a  minute.    He 


i$8  THE    CUP   OF    FURY 

didn't  impress  me  very  favorably,  so  I  didn't  tell  him  you 
were  living  with  us." 

Polly  turned  on  Tom:  "Come  along,  you  poor  nut!  I  hate 
riddles,  and  so  does  Marie  Louise." 

"That's  it!"  Tom  cried.  " Riddle— Nuddle.  His  name  is 
Nuddle.  Do  you  know  a  man  named  Nuddle?" 

The  name  conveyed  nothing  to  Marie  Louise  except  a  sus 
picion  that  Mr.  Verrinder  had  chosen  some  pseudonym. 

"What  was  his  nationality?"  she  asked.     "English?" 

"I  should  say  not!  He  was  as  Amurrican  as  a  piece  of 
pungkin  pie." 

Marie  Louise  felt  a  little  relieved,  but  still  at  sea.  When 
Widdicombe  asked  what  message  he  should  take  back  her 
curiosity  led  her  to  brave  her  fate  and  know  the  worst: 

"Tell  him  to  come  to  my  house  at  any  time  this  afternoon 
— no,  not  before  five.  I  have  some  shopping  to  do,  and  the 
servants  to  engage." 

She  did  not  ask  Polly  to  go  with  ner,  and  Polly  took  the  hint 
conveyed  in  Marie  Louise's  remark  as  they  left  the  dining- 
room,  "I've  a  little  telephoning  to  do." 

Polly  went  her  way,  and  Marie  Louise  made  a  pretext  of 
telephoning. 

Major  Widdicombe  did  not  see  Jake  Nuddle  as  he  went 
down  the  steps,  for  the  reason  that  Jake  saw  him  first  and  drew 
his  wife  aside.  He  wondered  what  had  become  of  Marie 
Louise. 

Jake  and  his  wife  hung  about  nonplussed  for  a  few  minutes, 
till  Marie  Louise  came  out.  She  had  waited  only  to  make 
sure  that  Tom  and  Polly  got  away.  When  she  came  down  the 
steps  she  cast  a  casual  glance  at  Jake  and  her  sister,  who 
came  toward  her  eagerly.  But  she  assumed  that  they  were 
looking  at  some  one  else,  for  they  meant  nothing  to  her  eyes. 

She  had  indeed  never  seen  this  sister  before.  The  sister 
who  waddled  toward  her  was  not  the  sister  she  had  left  in 
Wakefield  years  before.  That  sister  was  young  and  lean  and 
a  maid.  Marriage  and  hard  work  and  children  had  swaddled 
this  sister  in  bundles  of  strange  flesh  and  drawn  the  face  in 
new  lines. 

Marie  Louise  turned  her  back  on  her,  but  heard  across  her 
shoulder  the  poignant  call: 

"Mamise!" 


THE    CUP   OF    FURY  159 

That  voice  was  the  same.  It  had  not  lost  its  own  peculiar 
cry,  and  it  reverted  the  years  and  altered  the  scene  like  a 
magician's  "Abracadabra!" 

Marie  Louise  swung  round  just  in  time  to  receive  the  full 
brunt  of  her  sister's  charge.  The  repeated  name  identified 
the  strange-looking  matron  as  the  girl  grown  old,  and  Marie 
Louise  gathered  her  into  her  arms  with  a  fierce  homesickness. 
Her  loneliness  had  found  what  it  needed.  She  had  kinfolk 
now,  and  she  sobbed:  "Abbie  darling!  My  darling  Abbie!" 
while  Abbie  wept:  "Mamise!  Oh,  my  poor  little  Mamise!" 

A  cluster  of  cab-drivers  wondered  what  it  was  all  about, 
but  Jake  Muddle  felt  triumphant.  Marie  Louise  looked  good 
to  him  as  he  looked  her  over,  and  for  the  nonce  he  was  content 
to  have  the  slim,  round  fashionable  creature  enveloped  in  his 
wife's  arms  for  a  sister-in-law. 

'Abbie,  a  little  homelier  than  ever  with  her  face  blubbery 
and  tear-drenched,  turned  to  introduce  what  she  had  drawn 
in  the  matrimonial  lottery. 

' '  Mamise !' '  she  said.    ' '  I  want  you  should  meet  my  husbin' . ' ' 

"I'm  delighted!"  said  Mamise,  before  she  saw  her  sister's 
fate.  She  was  thorough- trained  if  not  thorough-born,  and 
she  took  the  shock  without  reeling. 

Jake's  hand  was  not  as  rough  so  it  ought  to  have  been, 
and  his  cordiality  was  sincere  as  he  growled: 

"  Pleaster  meecher,  Mamise." 

He  was  ready  already  with  her  first  name,  but  she  had 
nothing  to  call  him  by.  It  never  occurred  to  Abbie  that  her 
sister  would  not  instinctively  know  a  name  so  familiar  to 
Mrs.  Nuddle  as  Mr.  Nuddle,  and  it  was  a  long  while  before 
Marie  Louise  managed  to  pick  it  up  and  piece  it  together. 

Her  embarrassment  at  meeting  Jake  was  complete.  She 
asked: 

"Where  are  you  living — here  in  Washington?" 

"Laws,  no!"  said  Abbie;  and  that  reminded  her  of  the 
bundles  she  had  dropped  at  the  sight  of  Mamise.  They 
had  played  havoc  with  the  sidewalk  traffic,  but  she  hurried 
to  regain  them. 

Jake  could  be  the  gentleman  when  there  was  somebody 

looking  who  counted.     So  he  checked  his  wife  with  amazement 

at  the  preposterousness  of  her  carrying  bundles  while  Sir 

Walter  Raleigh  was  at  hand.    He  picked  them  up  and  brought 

11 


160  THE    CUP    OF    FURY 

them  to  Marie  Louise's  feet,  disgusted  at  the  stupid  amaze 
ment  of  his  wife,  who  did  not  have  sense  enough  to  conceal  it. 
Marie  Louise  was  growing  alarmed  at  the  perfect  plebeiance 
of  her  kith.  She  was  unutterably  ashamed  of  herself  for 
noticing  such  things,  but  the  eye  is  not  to  blame  for  what 
it  can't  help  seeing,  nor  the  ear  for  what  is  forced  upon  it. 
She  had  a  feeling  that  the  first  thing  to  do  was  to  get  her 
sister  in  out  of  the  rain  of  glances  from  the  passers-by. 

"You  must  come  to  me  at  once,"  she  said.  "I've  just 
taken  a  house.  I've  got  no  servants  in  yet,  and  you'll  have 
to  put  up  with  it  as  it  is." 

Abbie  gasped  at  the  "servants."  She  noted  the  authority 
with  which  Marie  Louise  beckoned  a  chauffeur  and  pointed 
to  the  bundles,  which  he  hastened  to  seize. 

Abbie  was  overawed  by  the  grandeur  of  her  first  automobile 
and  showed  it  on  her  face.  She  saw  many  palaces  on  the 
way  and  expected  Marie  Louise  to  stop  at  any  of  them. 
When  the  car  drew  up  at  Marie  Louise's  home  Abbie  was 
bitterly  disappointed;  but  when  she  got  inside  she  found  her 
dream  of  paradise.  Marie  Louise  was  distressed  at  Abbie's 
loud  praise  of  the  general  effect  and  her  unfailing  instinct  for 
picking  out  the  worst  things  on  the  walls  or  the  floors.  This 
distress  caused  a  counter-distress  of  self-rebuke. 

Jake  was  on  his  dignity  at  first,  but  finally  he  unbent 
enough  to  take  off  his  coat,  hang  it  over  a  chair,  and  stretch 
himself  out  on  a  divan  whose  ulterior 'maroon  did  not  disturb 
his  repose  in  the  least. 

"This  is  what  I  call  something  like,"  he  said;  and  then, 
"And  now,  Mamise,  set  in  and  tell  us  all  about  yourself." 

This  was  the  last  thing  Mamise  wanted  to  do,  and  she 
evaded  with  a  plea: 

"I  can  wait.  I  want  to  hear  all  about  you,  Abbie  darling. 
How  are  you,  and  how  long  have  you  been  married,  and 
where  do  you  live?" 

"Coin*  on  eight  years  come  next  October,  and  we  got  three 
childern.  I  been  right  poorly  lately.  Don't  seem  to  take 
as  much  interest  in  worshin'  as  I  useter." 

"Washing!"  Marie  Louise  exclaimed.  "You  don't  wash, 
do  you?  That  is,  I  mean  to  say — professionally?" 

"Yes,  I  worsh.     Do  right  smart  of  work,  too." 

Marie    Louise    was    overwhelmed.     She    had    a    hundred 


THE    CUP   OF    FURY  161 

thousand  dollars,  and  her  sister  was  a — washerwoman!  It 
was  intolerable.  She  glanced  at  Jake. 

"But  Mr. — your  husband — " 

"Oh,  Jake,  he  works — off  and  on.  But  he  ain't  got  what 
you  might  call  a  hankerin'  for  it.  He  can  take  work  or  let  it 
alone.  I  can't  say  as  much  for  him  when  it  comes  to  licker. 
Fact  is,  some  the  women  say,  'Why,  Mrs.  Nuddle,  how  do 
you  ever — '" 

"Your  name  isn't — it  isn't  Nuddle,  is  it?"  Marie  Louise 
broke  in. 

"Sure  it  is.     What  did  you  think  it  was?" 

So  the  sleeping  brother-in-law  was  the  mysterious  inquirer. 
That  solved  one  of  her  day's  puzzles  and  solved  it  very  tamely. 
So  many  of  life's  mysteries,  like  so  many  of  fiction's,  peter 
out  at  the  end.  They  don't  sustain. 

Marie  Louise  still  belonged  to  the  obsolescent  generation 
that  believed  it  a  husband's  duty  to  support  his  wife  by  his 
own  labor.  The  thought  of  her  sister  supporting  a  worthless 
husband  by  her  own  toil  was  odious.  The  first  task  was  to 
get  Jake  to  work.  It  was  only  natural  that  she  should  think 
of  her  own  new  mania. 

She  spoke  so  eagerly  that  she  woke  Jake  when  she  said: 
"I  have  it!  Why  doesn't  your  husband  go  in  for  ship 
building?" 

Marie  Louise  told  him  about  Davidge  and  what  Davidge 
had  said  of  the  need  of  men.  She  was  sure  that  she  could  get 
him  a  splendid  job,  and  that  Mr.  Davidge  would  do  anything 
for  her. 

Jake  was  about  to  rebuke  such  impudence  as  it  deserved, 
but  a  thought  struck  him,  and  he  chewed  it  over.  Among 
the  gang  of  idealists  he  consorted  with,  or  at  least  salooned 
with,  the  dearest  ambition  of  all  was  to  turn  America's  dream 
of  a  vast  fleet  of  ships  into  a  nightmare  of  failure.  In  order 
to  secure  "just  recognition"  for  the  workman  they  would 
cause  him  to  be  recognized  as  both  a  loafer  and  a  traitor — 
that  was  their  ideal  of  labor. 

As  Marie  Louise  with  unwitting  enthusiasm  rhapsodized 
over  the  shipyard  Jake's  interest  kindled.  To  get  into  a  ship 
yard  just  growing,  and  spread  his  doctrines  among  the  men 
as  they  came  in,  to  bring  off  strikes  and  to  play  tricks  with 
machinery  everywhere,  to  wreck  launching-ways  so  that  hulls 


162  THE    CUP   OF    FURY 

that  escaped  all  other  attacks  would  crack  through  and  stick — 
it  was  a  Golconda  of  opportunities  for  this  modern  conquis 
tador.  He  could  hardly  keep  his  face  straight  till  he  heard 
Marie  Louise  out.  He  fooled  her  entirely  with  his  ardor; 
and  when  he  asked,  "Do  you  think  your  gentleman  friend, 
this  man  Davidge,  would  really  give  me  a  job?"  she  cried, 
with  more  enthusiasm  than  tact: 

"I  know  he  would.  He'd  give  anybody  a  job.  Besides, 
I'm  going  to  take  one  myself.  And,  Abbie  honey,  what 
would  you  say  to  your  becoming  a  ship-builder,  too?  It 
would  be  immensely  easier  and  pleasanter  than  washing 
clothes." 

Before  Abbie  could  recover  the  breath  she  lost  at  the  picture 
of  herself  as  a  builder  of  ships  the  door-bell  rang.  Abbie 
peeked  and  whispered: 

"It's  a  man." 

"Do  you  suppose  it's  that  feller  Davidge?"  said  Jake. 

"No,  it's — it's — somebody  else,"  said  Marie  Louise,  who 
knew  who  it  was  without  looking. 

She  was  at  her  wit's  end  now.  Nicky  Easton  was  at  the 
door,  and  a  sister  and  a  brother-in-law  whose  existence  she 
had  not  suspected  were  in  the  parlor. 


CHAPTER  XI 

IF  anything  is  anybody's  very  own,  it  is  surely  his  past,  or 
hers — particularly  hers.  But  Nicky  Easton  was  bringing 
one  of  the  most  wretched  chapters  of  Marie  Louise's  past  to 
her  very  door.  She  did  not  want  to  reopen  it,  especially  not 
before  her  new-found  family.  One  likes  to  have  a  few  illusions 
left  for  these  reunions.  So  she  said: 

"Abbie  darling,  would  you  forgive  me  if  I  saw  this — person 
alone?  Besides,  you'll  be  wanting  to  get  settled  in  your  room, 
if  Mr. — Ja — your  husband  doesn't  mind  taking  your  things 
up." 

Abbie  had  not  been  used  to  taking  dismissals  graciously. 
She  had  never  been  to  court  and  been  permitted  to  retire. 
Besides,  people  who  know  how  to  take  an  eviction  gracefully 
usually  know  enough  to  get  out  before  they  are  put  out.  But 
Abbie  had  to  be  pushed,  and  she  went,  heartbroken,  dis 
graced,  resentful.  Jake  sulked  after  her.  They  moved 
like  a  couple  of  old  flea-bitten  mongrels  spoken  to  sharply. 

And  of  course  they  stole  back  to  the  head  of  the  stairs  and 
listened. 

Nicky  had  his  face  made  up  for  a  butler,  or  at  least  a  maid. 
When  he  saw  Marie  Louise  he  had  to  undo  his  features,  change 
his  opening  oration,  and  begin  all  over  again. 

"It  is  zhoo  yourself,  then,"  he  said. 

"Yes.     Come  in,  do.     I  have  no  servants  yet." 

"Ah!"  he  cooed,  encouraged  at  once. 

She  squelched  his  hopes.  "My  sister  and  her  husband  are 
here,  however." 

This  astounded  him  so  that  he  spoke  in  two  languages  at 
once :  ' '  Your  schwister !  Since  how  long  do  you  have  a  sester  ? 
And  where  did  you  get?" 

"I  have  always  had  her.  but  we  haven't  seen  each  other  for 
years." 

He  gasped,  "Was  Sie  nicht  sagen!" 


i64  THE    CUP   OF    FURY 

"And  if  you  wouldn't  mind  not  talking  German — " 

"Recht  so.     Excuse.     Do  I  come  in — no?" 

She  stepped  back,  and  he  went  into  the  drawing-room.  He 
smiled  at  what  he  saw,  and  was  polite,  if  cynical. 

"You  rent  foornished?" 

"Yes." 

He  waved  her  to  a  chair  so  that  he  might  sit  down. 

"Was  giebt's  neues — er — what  is  the  noose?" 

"I  have  none.     What  is  yours?" 

"You  mean  you  do  not  wish  to  tell.  If  I  should  commence 
once,  I  should  never  stop.  But  we  are  both  alife  yet.  That 
is  always  somethink.  I  was  never  so  nearly  not." 

Marie  Louise  could  not  withhold  the  protest: 

"You  saved  yourself  by  betraying  your  friends." 

"Well,  I  telled — I  told  only  what  the  English  knew  al 
ready.  If  they  let  me  go  for  it,  it  was  no  use  to  kill  everybody, 
should  I?" 

He  was  rather  miserable  about  it,  for  he  could  see  that  she 
despised  him  more  for  being  an  informer  than  for  having 
something  to  inform.  He  pleaded  in  extenuation: 

"But  I  shall  show  how  usefool  I  can  be  to  my  country. 
Those  English  shall  be  sorry  to  let  me  go,  and  my  people  glad. 
And  so  shall  you." 

She  studied  him,  and  dreaded  him,  loathing  his  claim 
on  her,  longing  to  order  him  never  to  speak  again  to  her,  yet 
strangely  interested  in  his  future  power  for  evil.  The  thought 
occurred  to  her  that  if  she  could  learn  his  new  schemes  she 
might  thwart  them.  That  would  be  some  atonement  for 
what  she  had  not  prevented  before.  This  inspiration  bright 
ened  her  so  suddenly  and  gave  such  an  eagerness  to  her  man 
ner  that  he  saw  the  light  and  grew  suspicious — a  spy  has  to  be, 
for  he  carries  a  weapon  that  has  only  one  cartridge  in  it. 

Marie  Louise  waited  for  him  to  explain  his  purpose  till  the 
suspense  began  to  show;  then  she  said,  bluntly: 

"What  mischief  are  you  up  to  now?" 

"Mitschief — me?"  he  asked,  all  innocently. 

"You  said  you  wanted  to  see  me." 

"I  always  want  to  see  you.  You  interest — my  eyes — my 
heart — " 

"Please  don't."  She  said  it  with  the  effect  of  slamming  a 
door. 


THE    CUP   OF    FURY  165 

She  looked  him  full  in  the  eyes  angrily,  then  remembered 
her  curiosity.  He  saw  her  gaze  waver  with  a  double  motive. 

It  is  strange  how  people  can  fence  with  their  glances,  as 
if  they  were  emanations  from  the  eyes  instead  of  mere  re 
flections  of  light  back  and  forth.  But  however  it  is  managed, 
this  man  and  this  woman  played  their  stares  like  two  foils 
feeling  for  an  opening.  At  length  he  surrendered  and  re 
solved  to  appeal: 

'How  do  you  feel  about — about  us?" 

'Who  are  us?" 

'We  Germans." 

'We  are  not  Germans.     I'm  American." 

'Then  England  is  your  greater  enemy  than  Germany." 

She  wanted  to  smile  at  that,  but  she  said: 

"Perhaps." 

He  pleaded  for  his  cause.  ' '  America  ought  not  to  have  joined 
the  war  against  the  Vaterland.  It  is  only  a  few  Americans — 
bankers  who  lended  money  to  England — who  wish  to  fight  us." 

Up-stairs  Jake's  heart  bounded.  Here  was  a  fellow-spirit. 
He  listened  for  Marie  Louise's  response;  he  caught  the  doubt 
in  her  tone.  She  could  not  stomach  such  an  absurdity: 

"Bosh!"  she  said. 

It  sounded  like  "Boche!"     And  Nicky  flushed. 

"You  have  been  in  this  Washington  town  too  long.  I 
think  I  shall  go  now." 

Marie  Louise  made  no  objection.  She  had  not  found  out 
what  he  was  up  to,  but  she  was  sick  of  duplicity,  sick  of  the 
sight  of  him  and  all  he  stood  for.  She  did  not  even  ask  him 
to  come  again.  She  went  to  the  door  with  him  and  stood 
there  a  moment,  long  enough  for  the  man  who  was  shadowing 
Nicky  to  identify  her.  She  watched  Nicky  go  and  hoped  that 
she  had  seen  the  last  of  him.  But  up-stairs  the  great  heart 
of  Jake  Nuddle  was  seething  with  excitement.  He  ran  to  the 
front  window,  caught  a  glimpse  of  Nicky,  and  hurried  back 
down  the  stairs. 

Abbie  called  out,  "Where  you  goin'?" 

Jake  did  not  answer  such  a  meddlesome  question,  but  he 
said  to  Marie  Louise,  as  he  brushed  past  her  on  the  stairs: 

"I'm  going  to  the  drug-store  to  git  me  some  cigars." 

Nicky  paused  on  the  curb,  looking  for  a  cab.  He  had  dis 
missed  his  own,  hoping  to  spend  a  long  while  with  Marie 


166  THE    CUP   OF    FURY 

Louise.  He  saw  that  he  was  not  likely  to  pick  up  a  cab  in 
such  a  side-street,  and  so  he  walked  on  briskly. 

He  was  furious  with  Marie  Louise.  He  had  had  hopes  of 
her,  and  she  had  fooled  him.  These  Americans  were  no 
longer  dependable. 

And  then  he  heard  footsteps  on  the  walk,  quick  footsteps 
that  spelled  hurry.  Nicky  drew  aside  to  let  the  speeder  pass ; 
but  instead  he  heard  a  constabular  "Hay!"  and  his  shoulder- 
blades  winced. 

It  was  only  Jake  Nuddle.  Jake  had  no  newspaper  to  sell, 
but  he  had  an  idea  for  a  collaboration  which  would  bring  him 
some  of  that  easy  money  the  Germans  were  squandering  like 
drunken  sailors. 

"You  was  just  talkin'  to  my  sister-in-law,"  said  Jake. 

"Ah,  you  are  then  the  brother  of  Marie  Louise?" 

"Yep,  and  I  couldn't  help  hearin'  a  little  of  what  passed 
between  you." 

Jake's  slyness  had  a  detective-like  air  in  Nicky's  anxious 
eyes.  He  warned  himself  to  be  on  guard.  Jake  said: 

"I'm  for  Germany  unanimous.  I  think  it's  a  rotten  shame 
for  America  to  go  into  this  war.  And  some  of  us  Americans 
are  sayin'  we  won't  stand  for  it.  We  don't  own  no  Congers- 
men;  we're  only  the  protelarriat,  as  the  feller  says;  but  we're 
goin'  to  put  this  country  on  the  bum,  and  that's  what  old 
Kaiser  Bill  wants  we  should  do,  or  I  miss  my  guess,  hay?" 

Nicky  was  cautious : 

"How  do  you  propose  to  help  the  All  Highest?" 

"Sabotodge." 

"You  interest  me,"  said  Nicky. 

They  had  come  to  one  of  the  circles  that  moon  the  plan  of 
Washington.  Nicky  motioned  Jake  to  a  bench,  where  they 
could  command  the  approach  and  be,  like  good  children,  seen 
and  not  heard.  Jake  outlined  his  plan. 

When  Nicky  Easton  had  rung  Marie  Louise  s  bell  he  had  not 
imagined  how  much  help  Marie  Louise  would  render  him  in 
giving  him  the  precious  privilege  of  meeting  her  unprepossess 
ing  brother-in-law;  nor  had  she  dreamed  what  peril  she  was 
preparing  for  Davidge  in  planning  to  secure  for  him  and  his 
shipyard  the  services  of  this  same  Jake,  as  lazy  and  as 
amiable  as  any  side-winder  rattlesnake  that  ever  basked  in 
the  sunlit  sand. 


BOOK    IV 

AT   THE    SHIPYARD 


here  was   something    hallowed   and   awesome    about 
it  all.     It  had  a  cathedral  majesty. 


CHAPTER  I 

DAVIDGE  despised  a  man  who  broke  his  contracts.  He 
broke  one  with  himself  and  despised  himself.  He  broke 
his  contract  to  ignore  the  existence  of  Marie  Louise.  The 
next  time  he  came  to  Washington  he  sought  her  out.  He 
called  up  the  Widdicombe  home  and  learned  that  she  had 
moved.  She  had  no  telephone  yet,  for  it  took  a  vast  amount 
of  time  to  get  any  but  a  governmental  telephone  installed. 
So  he  noted  her  address,  and  after  some  hesitation  decided 
to  call.  If  she  did  not  want  to  see  him,  her  butler  could 
tell  him  that  she  was  out. 

He  called.  Marie  Louise  had  tried  in  vain  to  get  in  servants 
who  would  stay.  Abbie  talked  to  them  familiarly — and  so 
did  Jake.  The  virtuous  ones  left  because  of  Jake,  and  the 
others  left  because  of  Abbie. 

So  Abbie  went  to  the  door  when  Davidge  called.  He  sup 
posed  that  the  butler  was  having  a  day  off  and  the  cook 
was  answering  the  bell.  He  offered  his  card  to  Abbie. 

She  wiped  her  hand  on  her  apron  and  took  it,  then  handed 
it  back  to  him,  saying: 

"You'll  have  to  read  it.     I  ain't  my  specs." 

Davidge  said,  "Please  ask  Miss  Webling  if  she  can  see 
Mr.  Davidge." 

"You're  not  Mr.  Davidge!"  Abbie  gasped,  remembering 
the  importance  Marie  Louise  gave  him. 

"Yes,"  said  Davidge,  with  proper  modesty. 

"Well,  I  want  to  know!" 

Abbie  wiped  her  hand  again  and  thrust  it  forward,  seizing 
his  questioning  fingers  in  a  practised  clench,  and  saying, 
"Come  right  on  in  and  seddown."  She  haled  the  befuddled 
Davidge  to  a  chair  and  regarded  him  with  beaming  eyes.  He 
regarded  her  with  the  eyes  of  astonishment — and  the  ears,  too, 
for  the  amazing  servant,  forever  wiping  her  hands,  went  to 
the  stairs  and  shrieked: 


170  THE    CUP    OF    FURY 

"Mamee-eese!    Oh,  Ma-mee-uz!     Mist'  Davidge  is  shere." 

Poor  Mamise!  She  had  to  come  down  upon  such  a  scene, 
and  without  having  had  any  chance  to  break  the  news  that 
she  had  a  sister  she  had  to  introduce  the  sister.  She  had 
no  chance  to  explain  her  till  a  fortunate  whiff  of  burning 
pastry  led  Abbie  to  groan,  "My  Lord,  them  pies!"  and  flee. 

If  ever  Marie  Louise  had  been  guilty  of  snobbery,  She  was 
doing  penance  for  it  now.  She  was  too  loyal  to  what  her 
family  ought  to  have  been  and  was  not  to  apologize  for 
Abbie,  but  she  suffered  in  a  social  purgatory. 

Worse  yet,  she  had  to  ask  Davidge  to  give  her  brother- 
in-law  a  job.  And  Davidge  said  he  would.  He  said  it  before 
he  saw  Jake.  And  when  he  saw  him,  though  he  did  not  like 
him,  he  did  not  guess  what  treachery  the  fellow  planned. 
He  invited  him  to  come  to  the  shipyard — by  train. 

He  invited  Mamise  to  ride  thither  in  her  own  car  the  next 
day  to  see  his  laboratory  for  ships,  never  dreaming  that  the 
German  menace  was  already  planning  its  destruction. 

Not  only  in  cheap  plays  and  farces  do  people  continue  in 
perplexities  that  one  question  and  one  answer  would  put  an 
end  to.  In  real  life  we  incessantly  dread  to  ask  the  answers 
to  conundrums  that  we  cannot  solve,  and  persist  in  misery 
for  lack  of  a  little  frankness. 

For  many  a  smiling  mile,  on  the  morrow,  Davidge  rode  in  a 
torment.  So  stout  a  man,  to  be  fretted  by  so  little  a  matter! 
Yet  he  was  unable  to  bring  himself  to  the  point  of  solving 
his  curiosity.  The  car  had  covered  forty  miles,  perhaps, 
while  his  thoughts  ran  back  and  forth,  lacing  the  road  like  a 
dog  accompanying  a  carriage.  A  mental  speedometer  would 
have  run  up  a  hundred  miles  before  he  made  the  plunge  and 
popped  the  subject. 

"Mamise  is  an  unusual  name,"  he  remarked. 

Marie  Louise  was  pleasantly  startled  by  the  realization  that 
his  long  silence  had  been  devoted  to  her. 

"Like  it?"  she  asked. 

"You  bet."  The  youthfulness  of  this  embarrassed  him  and 
made  her  laugh.  He  grew  solemn  for  about  eleven  hundred 
yards  of  road  that  went  up  and  down  and  up  and  down  in 
huge  billows.  Then  he  broke  out  again: 

"It's  an  unusual  name." 


THE    CUP   OF    FURY  171 

She  laughed  patiently.     "So  I've  heard." 

The  road  shot  up  a  swirling  hill  into  an  old,  cool  grove. 

"  I  only  knew  one  other — er — Mamise." 

This  sobered  her.     It  was  unpleasant  not  to  be  unique. 
The  chill  woods  seemed  to  be  rather  glum  about  it,  too. 
The  road  abandoned  them  and  flung  into  a  sun-bathed  plain. 
'Really?     You  really  knew  another — er — Mamise?" 
'Yes.     Years  ago." 
'Was  she  nice?" 
'Very." 

*Oh!"  She  was  sorry  about  that,  too.  The  road  slipped 
across  a  loose-planked,  bone-racking  bridge.  With  some 
jealousy  she  asked,  "What  was  she  like?" 

"You." 

"That's  odd."  A  little  shabby,  topply-tombed  graveyard 
glided  by,  reverting  to  oblivion.  "Tell  me  about  her." 

A  big  motor  charged  past  so  fast  that  the  passengers  were 
only  blurs,  a  grim  chauffeur-effect  with  blobs  of  fat  woman 
kind  trailing  snapping  veils.  The  car  trailed  a  long  streamer 
of  dust  that  tasted  of  the  road.  When  this  was  penetrated 
they  entered  upon  a  stretch  of  pleasant  travel  for  eyes  and 
wheels,  on  a  long,  long  channel  through  a  fruitful  prairie,  a 
very  allegory  of  placid  opulence. 

"It  was  funny,"  said  Davidge.  "I  was  younger  than  I  am. 
I  went  to  a  show  one  night.  A  musical  team  played  that 
everlasting  'Poet  and  Peasant'  on  the  xylophones.  They 
played  nearly  everything  on  nearly  everything — same  old 
stuff,  accordions,  horns,  bells;  same  old  jokes  by  the  same  fool 
clown  and  the  solemn  dubs.  But  they  had  a  girl  with  'em — 
a  young  thing.  She  didn't  play  very  well.  She  had  a  way 
with  her,  though — seemed  kind  of  disgusted  with  life  and  the 
rest  of  the  troupe  and  the  audience.  And  she  had  a  right 
to  be  disgusted,  for  she  was  as  pretty  as — I  don't  know  what. 
She  was  just  beautiful — slim  and  limber  and  long — what  you 
might  imagine  a  nymph  would  look  like  if  she  got  loose  in  a 
music-hall. 

"I  was  crazy  about  her.  If  I  could  ever  have  written  a 
poem  about  anybody,  it  would  have  been  about  her.  She 
struck  me  as  something  sort  of — well,  divine.  She  wore  the 
usual,  and  not  much  of  it — low  neck,  bare  arms,  and — tights. 
But  I  kind  of  revered  her;  she  was  so  clog-on  pretty. 


i72  THE   CUP   OF    FURY 

"When  the  drop  fell  on  that  act  I  was  lost.  I  was  an  orphan 
for  true.  I  couldn't  rest  till  I  saw  the  manager  and  asked  him 
to  take  me  back  and  introduce  me  to  her.  He  gave  me  a  nasty 
grin  and  said  he  didn't  run  that  kind  of  a  theater,  and  I  said 
I'd  knock  his  face  off  if  he  thought  I  thought  he  did.  Well, 
he  gave  in  finally  and  took  me  back.  I  fell  down  the  side-aisle 
steps  and  sprawled  along  the  back  of  the  boxes  and  stumbled 
up  the  steps  to  the  stage. 

"And  then  I  met  Mamise — that  was  her  name  on  the  pro 
gram — Mamise.  She  was  pretty  and  young  as  ever,  but  she 
wasn't  a  nymph  any  longer.  She  was  just  a  young,  painted 
thing,  a  sulky,  disgusted  girl.  And  she  was  feeding  a  big 
monkey — a  chimpanzee  or  something.  It  was  sitting  on  a 
bicycle  and  smoking  a  cigar — getting  ready  to  go  on  the 
stage. 

"It  was  so  human  and  so  unhuman  and  so  ugly,  and  she  was 
so  graceful,  that  it  seemed  like  a  sort  of  satire  on  humanity. 
The  manager  said,  'Say,  Mamise,  this  gentleman  here  wants 
to  pays  his  respecks.'  She  looked  up  in  a  sullen  way,  and  the 
chimpanzee  showed  his  teeth  at  me,  and  I  mumbled  some 
thing  about  expecting  to  see  the  name  Mamise  up  in  the  big 
electric  lights. 

"She  gave  me  a  look  that  showed  she  thought  I  was  a  darned 
fool,  and  I  agreed  with  her  then — and  since.  She  said.Jj'  Much 
obliged '  in  a  contemptuous  contralto  and — and  turned  to  the 
other  monkey. 

"The  interview  was  finished.  I  backed  over  a  scene-prop, 
knocked  down  a  stand  of  Indian-clubs,  and  got  out  into  the 
alley.  I  was  mad  at  her  at  first,  but  afterward  I  always 
respected  her  for  snubbing  me.  I  never  saw  her  again,  never 
saw  her  name  again.  As  for  the  big  electric  lights,  I  was 
a  punk  prophet.  But  her  name  has  stood  out  in  electric 
lights  in  my — my  memory.  I  suppose  she  left  the  stage  soon 
after.  She  may  be  dead  now. 

"It  hurt  me  a  lot  to  have  her  wither  me  with  that  one  big, 
slow  glance  of  hers,  but  I  was  glad  of  it  afterward.  It  made 
me  feel  more  comfortable  about  her.  If  she  had  welcomed 
every  stranger  that  came  along  she — well,  as  she  didn't, 
she  must  have  been  a  good  girl,  don't  you  suppose?" 

The  road  still  pierced  the  golden  scene,  a  monotony  of 
plenty,  an  endless-seeming  treasure  of  sheaves  of  wheat  and 


THE    CUP   OF    FURY  173 

stacks  of  corn,  with  pumpkins  of  yellow  metal  and  twisted 
ingots  of  squash;  but  an  autumnal  sorrow  clouded  the  land 
scape  for  Marie  Louise. 

"What  do  you  call  a  good  girl?"  she  asked. 

"That's  a  hard  question  to  answer  nowadays." 

"Why  nowadays?" 

"Oh,  because  our  ideas  of  good  are  so  much  more  merciful 
and  our  ideas  of  girls  are  so  much  more — complicated.  Any 
way,  as  the  fellow  said,  that's  my  story.  And  now  you  know 
all  about  Mamise  that  I  know.  Can  you  forgive  her  for 
wearing  your  name?" 

"I  could  forgive  that  Mamise  anything,"  she  sighed.  "But 
this  Mamise  I  can't  forgive  at  all." 

This  puzzled  him.     "I  don't  quite  get  that." 

She  let  him  simmer  in  his  own  perplexity  through  a  furlong 
of  what  helpless  writers  call  "a  shady  dell";  its  tenderness 
won  from  him  a  timid  confession. 

"You  reminded  me  of  her  when  I  first  met  you.  You  are 
as  different  as  can  be,  and  yet  somehow  you  remind  me  of 
each  other." 

"Somehow  we  are  eacn  other." 

He  leaned  forward  and  stared  at  her,  and  she  spared  him 
a  hasty  glance  from  the  road.  She  was  blushing. 

He  was  so  childishly  happy  that  he  nearly  said,  "  It's  a  small 
world,  after  all."  He  nearly  swung  to  the  other  extreme. 
"Well,  I'll  be — "  He  settled  like  a  dying  pendulum  on, 
"Well — well!"  They  both  laughed,  and  he  put  out  his  hand. 
"Pleased  to  meet  you  again." 

She  let  go  the  wheel  and  pressed  his  hand  an  instant. 

The  plateau  was  ended,  and  the  road  went  overboard  in  a 
long,  steep  cascade.  She  pushed  out  the  clutch  and  coasted. 
The  whir  of  the  engine  stopped.  The  car  sailed  softly. 

He  was  eager  for  news  of  the  years  between  then  and  now. 
It  was  so  wonderful  that  the  surly  young  beginner  in  vaude 
ville  should  have  evolved  into  this  orchid  of  the  salons.  He 
was  interested  in  the  working  of  such  social  machinery.  He 
urged: 

"Tell  me  all  about  yourself." 

"No,  thanks." 

"But  what  happened  to  you  after  I  saw  you?  You  don't 
remember  me,  of  course." 


174  THE    CUP    OF    FURY 

"I  remember  the  monkey." 

They  both  laughed  at  the  unconscious  brutality  of  this.  He 
turned  solemn  and  asked: 

"You  mean  that  so  many  men  came  back  to  call  on 
you?" 

"No,  not  so  many — too  many,  but  not  many.  But — well, 
the  monkey  was  more  unusual,  I  suppose.  He  traveled  with 
us  several  weeks.  He  was  very  jealous.  He  had  a  fight  with 
a  big  trained  dog  that  I  petted  once.  They  nearly  killed  each 
other  before  they  could  be  separated.  And  such  noises  as  they 
made!  I  can  hear  them  yet.  The  manager  of  the  monkey 
wanted  to  marry  me.  I  was  unhappy  with  my  team,  but  I 
hated  that  man — he  was  such  a  cruel  beast  with  the  monkey 
that  supported  him.  He'd  have  beaten  me,  too,  I  suppose,  and 
made  me  support  him." 

Davidge  sighed  with  relief  as  if  her  escape  had  been  just 
a  moment  before  instead  of  years  ago. 

"Lord!  I'm  glad  you  didn't  marry  him!  But  tell  me  what 
did  happen  after  I  saw  you." 

The  road  led  them  into  a  sizable  town,  street-car  tracks, 
bad  pavements,  stupid  shops,  workmen's  little  homes  in  rows 
like  chicken-houses,  then  better  streets,  better  homes,  business 
blocks  well  paved,  a  hotel,  a  post-office,  a  Carnegie  library,  a 
gawky  Civil  War  statue,  then  poorer  shops,  rickety  pavements, 
shanties,  and  the  country  again. 

Davidge  noted  that  she  had  not  answered  his  question.  He 
repeated  it: 

"What  happened  after  you  and  the  monkey-trainer  parted  ?" 

"Oh,  years  later  I  was  in  Berlin  with  a  team  called  the 
Musical  Mokes,  and  Sir  Joseph  and  Lady  Webling  saw  me 
and  thought  I  looked  like  their  daughter,  and  they  adopted 
me — that's  all." 

She  had  grown  a  bit  weary  of  her  autobiography.  Abbie 
had  made  her  tell  it  over  and  over,  but  had  tried  in  vain  to 
find  out  what  went  on  between  her  stage-beginnings  and  her 
last  appearance  in  Berlin. 

Davidge  was  fascinated  by  her  careless  summary  of  such 
great  events;  for  to  one  in  love,  all  biography  of  the  beloved 
becomes  important  history.  But  having  seen  her  as  a  member 
of  Sir  Joseph's  household,  he  was  more  interested  in  the 
interregnum. 


THE    CUP   OF    FURY  175 

"But  between  your  reaching  Berlin  and  the  time  I  saw  you 
what  happened?" 

"That's  my  business." 

She  saw  him  wince  at  the  abrupt  discourtesy  of  this.     She 
apologized : 

"I  don't  mean  to  be  rude,  but — well,  it  wouldn't  interest 
you." 

"Oh  yes,  it  would.     Don't  tell  me  if  you  don't  want  to, 
but—" 

"But—" 

"Oh,  nothing!" 

"You  mean  you'll  think  that  if  I  don't  tell  you  it's  because 
I'm  ashamed  to." 

"Oh  no,  not  at  all." 

"Oh  yes,  at  all.     Well,  what  if  I  were?" 

"I  can't  imagine  your  having  done  anything  to  be  ashamed 
of." 

"O  Lord!    Am  I  as  stupid  as  that  comes  to?" 

"No!     But  I  mean,  you  couldn't  have  done  anything  to  be 
really  ashamed  of." 

"That's  what  I  mean.     I've  done  numberless  things  I'd 
give  my  right  arm  not  to  have  done." 

"I  mean  really  wicked  things." 

"  Such  as— " 

"Oh — well,  I  mean  being  bad." 

"Woman-bad  or  man-bad?" 

"Bad  for  a  woman." 

"So  what's  bad  for  one  is  not  bad  for  another." 

"Well,  not  exactly,  but  there  is  a  difference." 

"If  I  told  you  that  I  had  been  very,  very  wicked  in  those 
mysterious  years,  would  it  seem  important  to  you?" 

"Of  course!     Horribly!     It  couldn't  help  it,  if  a  man  cared 
much  for  a  woman." 

"And  if  a  woman  cared  a  lot  for  a  man,  ought  it  to  make 
a  difference  what  he  had  done  before  he  met  her?" 

"Well,  of  course— but  that's  different." 

"Why?" 

"Oh,  because  it  is." 

"Men  say  'Because!'  too,  I  see." 

"  It's  just  shorthand  with  us.     It  means  you  know  it  so  well 
there's  no  need  of  explaining." 
12 


1 76  THE    CUP   OF    FURY 

"Oh!  Well,  if  you — I  say,  if  you  were  very  much  in  love 
with  me — " 

"Which  I—" 

"Don't  be  odiously  polite.  I'm  arguing,  not  fishing.  If 
you  were  deeply  in  love  with  me,  would  it  make  a  good  deal  of 
difference  to  you  if  several  years  ago  I  had  been — oh,  loose?" 

"  It  would  break  my  heart." 

Marie  Louise  liked  him  the  better  for  this,  but  she  held 
to  her  argument. 

"All  right.  Now,  still  supposing  that  we  loved  each  other, 
ought  I  to  inquire  of  you  if  the  man  of  my  possible  choice 
had  been  perfectly — well,  spotless,  all  that  time?  Ought 
I  expect  that  he  was  saving  himself  up  for  me,  feeling  him 
self  engaged  to  me,  you  might  say,  long  before  he  met  me,  and 
keeping  perfectly  true  to  his  future  fiancee — ought  I  to  expect 
that?" 

He  flushed  a  little  as  he  mumbled: 

"Hardly!" 

She  laughed  a  trifle  bitterly: 

"So  we're  there  already?" 

"Where?" 

"At  the  double  standard.  What's  crime  for  the  goose  is 
pastime  for  the  gander." 

He  did  not  intend  to  give  up  man's  ancient  prerogative. 

"Well,  it's  better  to  have  almost  any  standard  than  none, 
isn't  it?" 

"I  wonder." 

"The  single  standard  is  better  than  the  sixteen  to  one — 
silver  for  men  and  gold  for  women." 

"Perhaps!  But  you  men  seem  to  believe  in  a  sixteen  to 
none.  Mind  you,  I'm  not  saying  I've  been  bad." 

"I  knew  you  couldn't  have  been." 

"Oh  yes,  I  could  have  been — I'm  not  saying  I  wasn't.  I'm 
not  saying  anything  at  all.  I'm  saying  that  it's  nobody's 
business  but  my  own." 

"Even  your  future  husband  has  no  right  to  know?" 

"None  whatever.  He  has  the  least  right  of  all,  and  he'd 
better  not  try  to  find  out." 

"You  women  are  changing  things!" 

"We  have  to,  if  we're  going  to  live  among  men.  When 
you're  in  Rome — " 


THE    CUP    OF    FURY  177 

"You're  going  to  turn  the  world  upside  down,  I  suppose?" 

"We've  always  done  that  more  or  less,  and  nobody  ever 
could  stop  us,  from  the  Garden  of  Eden  on.  In  the  future, 
one  thing  is  sure :  a  lot  of  women  will  go  wrong,  as  the  saying 
is,  under  the  new  conditions,  with  liberty  and  their  own 
money  and  all.  But,  good  Lord!  millions  of  women  went 
wrong  in  the  old  days!  The  first  books  of  the  Bible  tell  about 
all  the  kinds  of  wickedness  that  we  know  to-day.  Somebody 
complained  that  with  all  our  modern  science  we  hadn't  in 
vented  one  new  deadly  sin.  We  go  on  using  the  same  old 
seven — well,  indecencies.  It  will  be  the  same  with  women. 
It's  bound  to  be.  You  can't  keep  women  unfree.  You've 
simply  got  to  let  them  loose.  The  old  ways  were  hideous ;  and 
it's  dishonest  and  vicious  to  pretend  that  people  used  to  be 
better  than  they  were,  just  as  an  argument  in  favor  of  slavery, 
for  fear  they  will  be  worse  than  the  imaginary  woman  they  put 
up  for  an  argument.  I  fancy  women  were  just  about  as  good 
and  just  about  as  bad  in  old  Turkey,  in  the  jails  they  call 
harems,  as  they  are  in  a  three-ringed  circus  to-day. 

"When  the  old-fashioned  woman  went  wrong  she  lied  or 
cried  or  committed  suicide  or  took  to  the  streets  or  went  on 
with  her  social  success,  as  the  case  might  be.  She'll  go  on  do 
ing  much  the  same — just  as  men  do.  Some  men  repent,  some 
cheat,  some  kill  themselves;  others  go  right  along  about  their 
business,  whether  it's  in  a  bank,  a  church,  a  factory,  a  city  or 
a  village  or  anywhere. 

"But  in  the  new  marriage — for  marriage  is  really  changing, 
though  the  marrying  people  are  the  same  old  folks — in  the 
new  marriage  a  man  must  do  what  a  woman  has  had  to  do 
all  along:  take  the  partner  for  better  or  worse  and  no  ques 
tions  asked." 

He  humored  her  heresy  because  he  found  it  too  insane  to 
reason  with.  "In  other  words,  we'll  take  our  women  as  is." 

"That's  the  expression — as  is.  A  man  will  take  his  sweet 
heart  'as  is'  or  leave  her.  And  whichever  he  does,  as  you 
always  say,  oh,  she'll  get  along  somehow." 

"The  old-fashioned  home  goes  overboard,  then?" 

"That  depends  on  what  you  mean  by  the  old-fashioned 
home.  I  had  one,  and  it  could  well  be  spared.  There  were  all 
kinds  of  homes  in  old  times  and  the  Middle  Ages  and  now 
adays,  and  there'll  be  all  kinds  forever.  But  we're  wrangling 


i78  THE    CUP   OF    FURY 

like  a  pair  of  lovers  instead  of  getting  along  beautifully  like  a 
pair  of  casual  acquaintances." 

"Aren't  we  going  to  be  more  than  that?" 

"I  hope  not.  I  want  a  place  on  your  pay-roll;  I'm  not 
asking  for  a  job  as  your  wife." 

"You  can  have  it." 

"Thanks,  but  I  have  another  engagement.  When  I  have 
made  my  way  in  the  world  and  can  support  you  in  the  style 
you're  accustomed  to,  I  may  come  and  ask  for  your  hand." 

Her  flippancy  irked  him  worse  than  her  appalling  ideas,  but 
she  grew  more  desirable  as  she  grew  more  infuriating,  for 
the  love-game  has  some  resemblances  to  the  fascinating- 
sickening  game  of  golf.  She  did  not  often  argue  abstrusely, 
and  she  was  already  fagged  out  mentally.  She  broke  off  the 
debate. 

"Now  let's  think  of  something  else,  if  you  don't  mind." 

They  talked  of  everything  else,  but  his  soul  was  chiefly 
engaged  in  alternating  vows  to  give  her  up  and  vows  to  make 
her  his  own  in  spite  of  herself;  and  he  kept  on  trying  to 
guess  the  conundrum  she  posed  him  in  refusing  to  enlighten 
him  as  to  those  unmentionable  years  between  his  first  sight  of 
her  and  his  second. 

In  making  love,  as  in  other  popular  forms  of  fiction,  the 
element  of  mystery  is  an  invaluable  adjunct  to  the  property 
value.  He  was  still  pondering  her  and  wondering  what  she 
was  pondering  when  they  reached  the  town  where  his 
shipyard  lay. 


CHAPTER  II 

FROM  a  hilltop  Marie  Louise  saw  below  her  in  panorama 
an  ugly  mess  of  land  and  riverscape — a  large  steel  shed, 
a  bewilderment  of  scaffolding,  then  a  far  stretch  of  muddy 
flats  spotted  with  flies  that  were  probably  human  beings, 
among  a  litter  of  timber,  of  girders,  of  machine-shanties,  of 
railroad  tracks,  all  spread  out  along  a  dirty  water. 

A  high  wire  fence  surrounded  what  seemed  to  need  no  pro 
tection.  In  the  neighborhood  were  numbers  of  workmen's 
huts — some  finished,  and  long  rows  of  them  in  building,  as 
much  alike  and  as  graceful  as  a  pan  of  raw  biscuits. 

She  saw  it  all  as  it  was,  with  a  stranger's  eyes.  Davidge 
saw  it  with  the  eyes  a  father  sees  a  son  through,  blind  to 
evident  faults,  vividly  accepting  future  possibilities  as  realities. 

Davidge  said,  with  repressed  pride: 

'Well,  thar  she  blows!" 

'What?" 

'My  shipyard!"    This  with  depressed  pride. 

'Oh,  rilly!  So  it  is!  How  wonderful!"  This  with  forced 
enthusiasm. 

'You  don't  like  it,"  he  groaned. 

'I'm  crazy  about  it." 

'If  you  could  have  seen  it  when  it  was  only  marsh  and 
weeds  and  mud-holes  and  sluices  you'd  appreciate  what  we've 
reclaimed  and  the  work  that  has  been  done." 

The  motor  pitched  down  a  badly  bruised  road. 

"Where's  the  ship  that's  nearly  done — your  mother's  ship?" 

''Behind  the  shed,  in  among  all  that  scaffolding." 

"Don't  tell  me  there's  a  ship  in  there!" 

"Yep,  and  she's  just  bursting  to  come  out." 

They  entered  the  yard,  past  a  guardian  who  looked  as  if 
a  bottle  of  beer  would  buy  him,  and  a  breath  strong  enough 
to  blow  off  the  froth  would  blow  him  over. 

Within  a  great  cage  of  falsework  Marie  Louise  could  see  the 


180  THE    CUP   OF    FURY 

ship  that  Davidge  had  dedicated  to  his  mother.  But  he  did 
not  believe  Marie  Louise  ready  to  understand  it. 

"Let's  begin  at  the  beginning,"  he  said.  "See  those  rail 
road  tracks  over  there?  Well,  that's  where  the  timber  comes 
from  the  forests  and  the  steel  from  the  mills.  Now  we'll  see 
what  happens  to  'em  in  the  shop." 

He  took  her  into  the  shed  and  showed  her  the  traveling- 
cranes  that  could  pick  up  a  locomotive  between  their  long  fin 
gers  and  carry  it  across  the  long  room  like  a  captured  beetle. 

"Up-stairs  is  the  mold-loft.  It's  our  dressmaking-shop. 
We  lay  down  the  design  on  the  floor,  and  mark  out  every 
piece  of  the  ship  in  exact  size,  and  then  make  templates  of 
wood  to  match — those  are  the  patterns.  It's  something  like 
making  a  gown,  I  suppose." 

"I  see,"  said  Marie  Louise.  "Then  you  fit  the  dress  to 
gether  out  in  the  yard." 

"Exactly,"  said  Davidge.  "You've  mastered  the  whole 
thing  already.  It's  a  long  climb  up  there.  Will  you  try  it?" 

"Later,  perhaps.  I  want  to  see  these  delightful  what-you- 
may-call-'ems  first." 

She  watched  the  men  at  work,  each  group  about  its  own 
machine,  like  priests  at  their  various  altars.  Davidge  ex 
plained  to  her  the  cruncher  that  manicured  thick  plates  of 
steel  sheets  as  if  they  were  finger-nails,  or  beveled  their  edges ; 
the  puncher  that  needled  rivet-holes  through  them  as  if  they 
were  silk,  the  ingenious  Lysholm  tables  with  rollers  for  tops. 

Marie  Louise  was  like  a  child  in  a  wholesale  toy-shop, 
understanding  nothing,  ecstatic  over  everything,  forbidden 
to  touch  anything.  In  her  ignorance  of  technical  matters, 
the  simplest  device  was  miraculous.  The  whole  place  was  a 
vast  laboratory  of  mysteries  and  magic. 

There  was  a  something  hallowed  and  awesome  about  it  all. 
It  had  a  cathedral  grandeur,  even  though  it  was  a  temple 
builded  with  hands  for  the  sake  of  the  things  builded  with 
hands.  The  robes  of  the  votaries  were  grimy  and  greasy,  and 
the  prayer  they  poured  out  was  sweat.  They  chewed  tobacco 
and  spat  regardless.  They  eyed  her  as  curiously  as  she  them. 
They  swaggered  each  his  own  way,  one  by  extra  oblivious- 
ness,  another  with  a  flourish  of  gesture.  They  seemed  to  want 
to  speak,  and  so  did  she,  but  embarrassment  caused  a  common 
silence. 


THE   CUP   OF   FURY  181 

On  the  ground  they  had  cleared  and  under  the  roof  they  had 
established  they  had  fashioned  vessels  that  should  carry  not 
myrrh  and  nard  to  make  a  sweet  smell  or  to  end  in  a  delicate 
smoke,  but  wheat,  milk  and  coal,  clothes  and  shoes  and  shells, 
for  the  feeding  and  warming  of  people  in  need,  and  for  the  de 
struction  of  the  god  of  destruction. 

Marie  Louise's  response  to  the  mood  of  the  place  was  con 
version,  a  passion  to  take  vows  of  eternal  industry,  to  put 
on  the  holy  vestments  of  toil  and  wield  the — she  did  not  even 
know  the  names  of  the  tools.  She  only  knew  that  they  were 
sacred  implements. 

She  was  in  an  almost  trancelike  state  when  Davidge  led 
her  from  this  world  with  its  own  sky  of  glass  to  the  outer 
world  with  the  same  old  space-colored  sky.  He  conducted 
her  among  heaps  of  material  waiting  to  be  assembled,  the 
raw  stuffs  of  creation. 

As  they  drew  near  the  almost  finished  ship  the  noise  of  the 
riveting  which  had  been  but  a  vague  palpitation  of  the  air 
became  a  well-nigh  intolerable  staccato. 

Men  were  at  work  everywhere,  Lilliputian  against  the  bulk 
of  the  hull  they  were  contriving.  Davidge  escorted  Marie 
Louise  with  caution  across  tremulous  planks,  through  dark 
caverns  into  the  hold  of  the  ship. 

In  these  grottoes  of  steel  the  clamor  of  the  riveters  grew 
maddening  in  her  ears.  They  were  everywhere,  holding  their 
machine-guns  against  reverberant  metal  and  hammering  steel 
against  steel  with  a  superhuman  velocity;  for  man  had  made 
himself  more  than  man  by  his  own  inventions,  .had  multiplied 
himself  by  his  own  machineries. 

"That's  the  great  Sutton,"  Davidge  remarked,  presently. 
"He's  our  prima  donna.  He's  the  champion  riveter  of  this 
part  of  the  country.  Like  to  meet  him?" 

Marie  Louise  nodded  yes  before  she  noted  that  the  man 
was  stripped  to  the  waist.  Runnels  of  sweat  ran  down  his 
flesh  and  shot  from  the  muscles  lea-ping  beneath  his  swart  hide. 

Davidge  went  up  to  him  and,  after  howling  in  vain,  tapped 
his  brawn.  Sutton  looked  up,  shut  off  his  noise,  and  turned 
to  Davidge  with  the  impatience  of  a  great  tenor  interrupted 
in  a  cadenza  by  a  mere  manager. 

Davidge  yelled,  with  unnecessary  voltage: 

"Sutton,  I  want  to  present  you  to  Miss  Webling." 


i82  THE   CUP   OF    FURY 

Sutton  realized  his  nakedness  like  another  Adam,  and  his 
confusion  confused  Marie  Louise.  She  nodded.  He  nodded. 
Perhaps  he  made  his  muscles  a  little  tauter. 

Davidge  had  planned  to  ask  Sutton  to  let  Marie  Louise 
try  to  drive  a  rivet,  just  to  show  her  how  hopeless  her  ambition 
was,  but  he  dared  not  loiter.  Marie  Louise,  feeling  silly  in 
the  silence,  asked,  stupidly: 

"So  that's  a  riveter?" 

"Yes,  ma'am,"  Sutton  confessed,  "this  is  a  riveter." 

"Oh!"  said  Marie  Louise. 

"Well,  I  guess  we'll  move  on,"  said  Davidge.  As  conversa 
tion,  it  was  as  unimportant  as  possible,  but  it  had  a  negative 
historical  value,  since  it  left  Marie  Louise  unconvinced  of  her 
inability  to  be  a  rivetress. 

She  said,  "Thank  you,"  and  moved  on.  Davidge  followed. 
Sutton  took  up  his  work  again,  as  a  man  does  after  a  woman 
has  passed  by,  pretending  to  be  indignant,  trying  by  an  added 
ferocity  to  conceal  his  delight. 

At  a  distance  Davidge  paused  to  say:  "He's  a  great  card, 
Sutton.  He  gets  a  lot  of  money,  but  he  earns  it  before  he 
spends  it,  and  he's  my  ideal  of  a  workman.  His  work  comes 
first.  He  hogs  all  the  pay  the  traffic  will  bear,  but  he  goes 
on  working  and  he  takes  a  pride  in  being  better  than  anybody 
else  in  his  line.  So  many  of  these  infernal  laborers  have  only 
one  ideal — to  do  the  least  possible  work  and  earn  enough  to 
loaf  most  of  the  time." 

Marie  Louise  thought  of  some  of  Jake  Nuddle's  principles 
and  wondered  if  she  had  done  right  in  recommending  him  for 
a  place  on  Davidge's  pay-roll.  She  was  afraid  he  would  be  a 
slacker,  never  dreaming  that  he  would  be  industrious  in  all 
forms  of  destruction.  Jake  never  demanded  short  hours  for 
his  conspiracies. 

At  the  top  of  the  unfinished  deck  Marie  Louise  forgot 
Jake  and  gave  her  mind  up  to  admiring  Davidge  as  the  father 
of  all  this  factory.  He  led  her  down,  out  and  along  the 
bottom-land,  through  bogs,  among  heaps  of  rusty  iron, 
to  a  concrete  building-slip.  He  seemed  to  be  very  important 
about  something,  but  she  could  not  imagine  what  it  was. 
She  saw  nothing  but  a  long  girder  made  up  of  sections.  It 
lay  along  a  flat  sheet  of  perforated  steel — the  homeliest  con 
traption  imaginable. 


THE   CUP   OF   FURY  183 

"Whatever  is  all  this,"  she  asked, —  "the  beginning  of  a 
bridge?" 

"Yes  and  no.  It's  the  beginning  of  part  of  the  bridge  we're 
building  across  the  Atlantic." 

"I  don't  believe  that  I  quite  follow  you." 

"This  is  the  keel  of  a  ship." 

"No!" 

"Yep!" 

"And  was  the  Clara  like  this  once?" 

"No.  Clara's  an  old-fashioned  creature  like  mother.  This 
is  a  newfangled  thing  like — like  you." 

"Like  me!    This  isn't — " 

"This  is  to  be  the  Mamise." 

She  could  not  hide  her  disappointment  in  her  namesake. 

"I  must  confess  she's  not  very  beautiful  to  start  with." 

"Neither  were  you  at  first,  I  suppose.  I — I  beg  your 
pardon.  I  mean — " 

He  tried  to  tell  her  about  the  new  principles  of  fabricated 
ships,  the  standardizing  of  the  parts,  and  their  manufacture 
at  distances  by  various  steel  plants,  the  absence  of  curved 
lines,  the  advantage  of  all  the  sacrifice  of  the  old  art  for  the 
new  speed. 

In  spite  of  what  she  had  read  she  could  not  make  his 
information  her  own.  And  yet  it  was  thrilling  to  look  at. 
She  broke  out: 

"I've  just  got  to  learn  how  to  build  ships.  It's  the  one 
thing  on  earth  that  will  make  me  happy." 

"Then  I'll  have  to  get  it  for  you." 

"You  mean  it?" 

"  If  anything  I  could  do  could  make  you  happy — cutting  off 
my  right  arm,  or — " 

"That's  no  end  nice  of  you.  But  I  am  in  earnest.  I'm 
wretchedly  unhappy,  doing  nothing.  We  women,  I  fancy, 
are  most  of  us  just  where  boys  are  when  they  have  outgrown 
boyhood  and  haven't  reached  manhood — when  they  are 
crazy  to  be  at  something,  and  can't  even  decide  where  to 
begin.  Women  have  got  to  come  out  in  the  world  and  get  to 
work.  Here's  my  job,  and  I  want  it!" 

He  looked  at  the  delicate  hands  she  fluttered  before  him, 
and  he  smiled.  She  protested: 

"I  always  loved  physical  exercise.     In  England  I  did  the 


184  THE    CUP   OF    FURY 

roughest  sort  of  farmwork.  I'm  stronger  than  I  look. 
I  think  I'd  rather  play  one  of  those  rat-tat-tat  instruments 
than — than  a  harp  in  New  Jerusalem." 

Davidge  shook  his  head.  "I'm  afraid  you're  not  quite 
strong  enough.  It  takes  a  lot  of  power  to  hold  the  gun 
against  the  hull.  The  compressed  air  kicks  and  shoves  so 
hard  that  even  men  tire  quickly.  Sutton  himself  has  all  he 
can  dp  to  keep  alive." 

"Give  me  a  hammer,  then,  and  let  me — smite  something." 

"Don't  you  think  you'd  rather  begin  in  the  office?  You 
could  learn  the  business  there  first.  Besides,  I  don't  like  the 
thought  of  your  roughing  up  those  beautiful  hands  of  yours." 

"  If  men  would  only  quit  trying  to  keep  women's  hands  soft 
and  clean,  the  world  would  be  the  better  for  it." 

"Well,  come  down  and  learn  the  business  first — you'd  be 
nearer  me." 

She  sidestepped  this  sentimental  jab  and  countered  with  a 
practical  left  hook: 

"But  you'd  teach  me  ship-building?" 

"I'd  rather  teach  you  home-building." 

"If  you  mean  a  home  on  the  bounding  main,  I'll  get  right 
to  work." 

He  was  stubborn  about  beginning  with  office  tasks,  and 
he  took  her  to  the  mold-loft.  She  was  fascinated  but  appalled 
by  her  own  ignorance  of  what  had  come  to  be  the  most  im 
portant  of  all  knowledge. 

She  sighed.  "I've  always  been  such  a  smatterer.  I  never 
have  really  known  anything  about  anything.  Most  women 
are  so  astonishingly  ignorant  and  indifferent  about  the 
essentials  of  men's  life." 

She  secretly  resolved  that  she  would  study  some  of  the 
basic  principles  of  male  existence — bookkeeping,  drafting, 
letter-writing,  filing,  trading.  It  amused  her  as  a  kind  of  new 
mischief  to  take  a  course  of  business  instruction  on  the  sly 
and  report  for  duty  not  as  an  ignoramus,  but  as  a  past-mistress 
in  office  practice.  It  was  at  least  a  refreshing  novelty  in 
duplicity. 

She  giggled  a  little  at  the  quaintness  of  her  conspiracy. 
The  old  song,  "Trust  Her  Not— She  Is  Fooling  Thee,"  oc 
curred  to  her  in  a  fantastic  parody:  "Trust  her  not — she  is 
fooling  thee;  she  is  clandestine  at  the  business  college ;  she  is 


THE    CUP   OF    FURY  185 

leading  a  double-entry  life.  She  writes  you  in  longhand, 
but  she  is  studying  shorthand.  She  is  getting  to  be  very  fast 
— on  the  typewriter." 

Davidge  asked  her  why  she  snickered,  but  she  would  not 
divulge  her  plot.  She  was  impatient  to  spring  it.  She 
wondered  if  in  a  week  she  could  learn  all  she  had  to  learn — 
if  she  worked  hard.  It  would  be  rather  pleasant  to  sit  at  his 
desk-leaf  and  take  dictation  from  him — confidential  letters 
that  he  would  intrust  to  no  one  else,  letters  written  in  a 
whisper  and  full  of  dark  references.  She  hoped  she  could 
learn  stenographic  velocity  in  a  few  days. 

As  she  and  Davidge  walked  back  to  the  car  she  noted  the 
workmen's  shanties. 

"If  I  come  here,  may  I  live  in  one  of  those  cunning  new 
bungalettes?" 

"Indeed  not!    There  are  some- nice  houses  in  town." 

"I'm  sick  of  nice  houses.  I  want  to  rough  it.  In  the  next 
war  millions  of  women  will  live  in  tents  the  way  the  men 
do.  Those  shanties  would  be  considered  palaces  in  Belgium 
and  northern  France.  In  fact,  any  number  of  women  are 
over  there  now  building  huts  for  the  poor  souls." 

Davidge  grew  more  and  more  wretched.  He  could  not 
understand  such  a  twisted  courtship.  His  sweetheart  did  not 
want  jewels  and  luxuries  and  a  life  of  wealthy  ease.  Her  only 
interest  in  him  seemed  to  be  that  he  would  let  her  live  in  a 
shanty,  wear  overalls,  and  pound  steel  all  day  for  union 
wages. 


CHAPTER  III 

A^  eloquent  contrast  with  Marie  Louise  was  furnished 
by  Jake  Nuddle.  He  was  of  the  ebb  type.  He  was 
degenerating  into  a  shirker,  a  destroyer,  a  money-maniac,  a 
complainer  of  other  men's  successes.  His  labor  was  hardly 
more  than  a  foundation  for  blackmailing.  He  loved  no 
country,  had  not  even  a  sense  of  following  the  crowd.  He 
called  the  Star-spangled  Banner  a  dirty  rag,  and  he  wanted 
to  wipe  his  feet  on  it.  He  was  useless,  baneful,  doomed. 

Marie  Louise  was  coming  into  a  new  Canaan.  What  she 
wanted  was  work  for  the  work's  sake,  to  be  building  something 
and  thereby  building  herself,  to  be  helping  her  country  for 
ward,  to  be  helping  mankind,  poor  and  rich.  The  sight  of  the 
flag  made  her  heart  ache  with  a  rapture  of  patriotism.  She 
had  the  urge  to  march  with  an  army. 

Marie  Louise  was  on  the  up  grade,  Jake  on  the  down. 
They  met  at  the  gate  of  the  shipyard. 

Jake  and  Abbie  had  come  over  by  train.  Jake  was  surly 
in  his  tone  to  Davidge.  His  first  question  was,  "Where  do 
we  live?" 

Marie  Louise  answered,  "In  one  of  those  quaint  little 
cottages." 

Jake  frowned  before  he  looked.  He  was  one  of  those 
who  hate  before  they  see,  feel  nausea  before  they  taste, 
condemn  the  unknown,  the  unheard,  the  unoffending. 

By  the  time  Jake's  eyes  had  found  the  row  of  shanties 
his  frown  was  a  splendid  thing. 

"Quaint  little  hog-pens!"  he  growled.  "Is  this  company 
the  same  as  all  the  rest — treatin'  its  slaves  like  swine?" 

Davidge  knew  the  type.  For  the  sake  of  Marie  Louise  he 
restrained  his  first  impulses  and  spoke  with  amiable  acidity: 

"There  are  better  houses  in  town,  some  of  them  very 
handsome." 

"Yah— but  what  rent?" 


THE   CUP   OF    FURY  187 

"Rather  expensive.  Rather  distant,  too,  but  you  can 
make  it  easily  in  an  automobile.'' 

'Where  would  I  git  a  nautomobile?" 

'I  can  introduce  you  to  the  man  who  sold  me  mine." 

'How  would  I  get  the  price?" 

'Just  where  I  did." 

'Whurr's  that?" 

'  Oh,  all  over  the  place.  I  used  to  be  a  common  unskilled 
laborer  like  you.  And  now  I  own  a  good  part  of  this  business. 
Thousands  of  men  who  began  poorer  than  I  did  are  richer 
than  I  am.  The  road's  just  as  open  to  you  as  to  me." 

Jake  had  plenty  of  answers  for  this.  He  had  memorized 
numbers  of  them  from  the  tracts;  but  also  he  had  plans  that 
would  not  be  furthered  by  quarreling  with  Davidge  the  first 
day.  He  could  do  Davidge  most  harm  by  obeying  him  and 
outwardly  catering  to  him.  He  solaced  his  pride  with  a 
thought  of  what  Davidge's  business  would  look  like  when 
he  got  through  with  it. 

He  laughed:  "All  right,  boss.  I  was  just  beefin',  for  the 
fun  of  beefin'.  Them  shanties  suit  me  elegant." 

Then  his  fool  wife  had  to  go  and  bust  in,  "Oh,  Jake,  if 
you  would  do  like  Mr.  Davidge  done,  and  git  rich  and  live 
easy!" 

Jake  gave  her  a  pantomimic  rebuke  that  reduced  her  to  a 
pulpy  silence. 

Marie  Louise  thought  to  restore  Abbie's  spirits  a  little  by 
saying  that  she  herself  was  coming  down  to  work  and  to  live 
in  one  of  those  very  shanties.  But  Abbie  gave  her  up  as 
hopeless.  Why  any  one  should  want  to  leave  a  house  like 
what  Mamise  had,  and  money  in  the  bank,  and  no  call  to 
lift  her  hand  for  nothing  except  to  ring  a  bell  and  get  some 
body  to  fetch  anything,  and  leave  all  that  and  live  like  a 
squatter  and  acturally  work — well,  it  did  beat  all  how  foolish 
some  folks  could  be  in  the  world  nowadays. 

Marie  Louise  left  Abbie  and  Jake  to  establish  themselves. 
She  had  to  get  back  to  Washington.  Davidge  had  planned 
to  go  with  her,  but  a  long-distance  telephone-call,  and  a  visit 
from  a  group  of  prospective  strikers,  and  a  warning  that  a 
consignment  of  long-expected  machinery  had  not  yet  arrived, 
took  him  out  of  the  car.  He  was  tempted  to  go  with  Marie 
Louise,  anyway,  but  she  begged  him  not  to  neglect  his  business 


i88  THE    CUP   OF    FURY 

for  her  unimportant  self,  and  bade  him  good-by  in  an  old 
Wakefield  phrase,  "If  I  don't  see  you  again,  hello!" 

She  returned  to  Washington  alone,  but  not  lonely.  Her 
thoughts  smoked  through  her  brain  like  a  dust-cloud  of 
shining  particles,  each  radiant  atom  a  great  idea.  The  road 
home  was  through  the  sky;  the  villages  and  groves  were  vague 
pink  clouds;  the  long  downward  slopes  were  shafts  of  sunlight, 
the  ridges  rainbows. 

It  would  take  her  hardly  any  time  to  conquer  the  mysteries 
of  stenography.  Surely  they  must  be  easy,  considering  some 
of  the  people  that  practised  the  art.  She  would  study  ship 
building,  and  drafting,  too.  Her  water-color  landscapes  had 
been  highly  praised  by  certain  young  men  and  old  ladies  in 
England.  She  would  learn  how  to  keep  her  own  bank-account 
and  revamp  her  arithmetic.  She  would  take  up  light  book 
keeping;  and  she  would  build  up  her  strength  in  a  gymnasium 
so  that  she  could  swing  a  sledge  as  well  as  the  next  one. 
She  would  offer  her  home  in  Washington  for  rent.  With  the 
mobs  pouring  in,  it  would  not  be  untenanted  long. 

Her  last  expectation  was  realized  first.  The  morning  after 
she  reached  home  she  visited  Mr.  Hailstorks  and  told  him  she 
would  sublet  her  mansion.  Now  that  she  wanted  to  collect 
rent  from  it  instead  of  paying  rent  for  it  her  description  of  its 
advantages  was  inevitably  altered.  With  perfect  sincerity 
she  described  its  very  faults  as  attractions. 

Thereafter  her  life  was  made  miserable  by  the  calls  of 
people  who  wanted  to  look  the  place  over.  She  had  incessant 
offers,  but  she  would  not  surrender  her  nest  till  she  was  ready 
to  go  back  to  the  shipyard,  and  that  was  always  to-morrow — 
the  movable  to-morrow  which  like  the  horizon  is  always  just 
beyond. 

She  sent  herself  to  school  and  was  dazed  by  her  ignorance. 
In  arithmetic  she  had  forgotten  what  she  had  gained  at  the 
age  of  ten,  and  it  was  not  easy  to  recapture  it. 

On  the  typewriter  she  had  to  learn  the  alphabet  all  over 
again  in  a  new  order,  and  this  was  fiendishly  hard.  She 
studied  the  touch-system  with  the  keyboard  covered,  and  her 
blunders  were  disheartening.  Her  deft  fingers  seemed  hardly 
to  be  her  own.  They  would  not  obey  her  will  at  all. 

Shorthand  was  baffling.  It  took  her  five  times  as  long  to 
write  in  shorthand  as  in  longhand  such  thrilling  literature 


THE   CUP   OF   FURY  189 

as:  "Dear  customer, — Letter  received  and  contents  noted. 
In  reply  to  same  would  say — " 

At  first  she  was  a  trifle  snobbish  and  stand-offish  with  some 
of  the  pert  young  fellow-pupils,  but  before  long  her  opinion 
of  them  increased  to  a  respect  verging  on  awe. 

They  could  take  dictation,  chew  gum,  and  fix  their  back 
hair  with  the  free  hand  all  at  once.  Their  fingers  pattered  the 
keyboard  like  rain,  and  their  letters  were  exquisitely  neat. 
They  had  studied  for  a  long  time,  and  had  acquired  pro 
ficiency.  And  it  is  no  easy  thing  to  acquire  proficiency  in  any 
task,  from  cobbling  shoes  to  polishing  sonnets  or  moving 
armies. 

Marie  Louise  was  humiliated  to  find  that  she  really  did  not 
know  how  to  spell  some  of  the  simplest  words.  When  she 
wrote  with  running  pen  she  never  stopped  to  spell.  She  just 
sketched  the  words  and  let  them  go.  She  wrote,  "I  beleive 
I  recieved,"  so  that  nobody  could  tell  e  from  *';  and  she  put 
the  dot  where  it  might  apply  to  either.  Her  punctuation 
was  all  dashes. 

The  typewriter  would  not  permit  anything  vague.  A  word 
stood  out  in  its  stark  reality,  howling  "Illiterate!"  at  her. 
Her  punctuation  simply  would  not  do. 

Pert  young  misses  who  were  honored  by  a  wink  from  an 
ice-cream-soda-counter  keeper  or  by  an  invitation  to  a  street 
car  conductors'  dance  turned  out  work  of  a  Grecian  perfection, 
while  Marie  Louise  bit  her  lips  and  blushed  with  shame  under 
the  criticisms  of  her  teacher.  She  was  back  in  school  again, 
the  dunce  of  the  class,  and  abject  discouragements  alternated 
with  spurts  of  zeal. 

In  the  mean  while  the  United  States  was  also  learning  the 
rudiments  of  war  and  the  enormous  office-practice  it  required. 
Before  the  war  was  over  the  army  of  118,000  men  and  5,000 
officers  in  February,  1917,  would  be  an  army  of  over  3,000,000, 
and  of  these  over  2,000,000  would  have  been  carried  to 
Europe,  half  of  them  in  British  ships;  50,000  of  these  would 
be  killed  to  Russia's  1,700,000  dead,  Germany's  1,600,000, 
France's  1,385,000,  England's  706,200,  Italy's  406,000,  and 
Belgium's  102,000.  The  wounded  Americans  would  be  three 
times  the  total  present  army.  Everybody  was  ignorant, 
blunderful.  Externally  and  internally  the  United  States  was 
as  busy  as  a  trampled  ant-hill. 


190  THE    CUP    OF    FURY 

Everything  in  those  days  was  done  in  drives.  The  armies 
made  drives;  the  financiers  made  drives;  the  charities  made 
drives.  The  world-heart  was  never  so  driven.  And  this  was 
all  on  top  of  the  ordinary  human  suffering,  which  did  not 
abate  one  jot  for  all  its  overload.  Teeth  ached  just  as  fiercely; 
jealousy  was  just  as  sickly  green;  empires  crackled;  people 
starved  in  herds;  cities  were  pounded  to  gravel;  army  after 
army  was  taken  prisoner  or  slaughtered;  yet  each  agitated 
atom  in  the  chaos  was  still  the  center  of  the  tormented  universe. 

Marie  Louise  suffered  for  mankind  and  for  herself.  She 
was  lonely,  love-famished,  inept,  dissatisfied,  and  abysmally 
ashamed  of  her  general  ineffectiveness.  Then  one  of  Wash 
ington's  infamous  hot  weeks  supervened.  In  the  daytime  the 
heat  stung  like  a  cat-o'-nine-tails.  The  nights  were  suffoca 
tion.  She  "slept,"  gasping  as  a  fish  flounders  on  dry  land. 
After  the  long  strain  of  fighting  for  peace,  toiling  for  rest, 
the  mornings  would  find  Marie  Louise  as  wrecked  as  if  she  had 
come  in  from  a  prolonged  spree.  Then  followed  a  day  of 
drudgery  at  the  loathly  necessities  of  her  stupid  work. 

Detail  and  delay  are  the  tests  of  ambition.  Ambition  sees 
the  mountain-peak  blessed  with  sunlight  and  cries,  "That  is 
my  goal!"  But  the  feet  must  cross  every  ditch,  wade  every 
swamp,  scramble  across  every  ledge.  The  peak  is  the  harder 
to  see  the  nearer  it  comes;  the  last  cliffs  hide  it  altogether, 
and  when  it  is  reached  it  is  only  a  rough  crag  surrounded  by 
higher  crags.  The  glory  that  lights  it  is  glory  in  distant  eyes 
alone. 

So  for  poor  Mamise.  She  had  run  away  from  a  squalid 
home  to  the  gorgeous  freedom  of  stage-life,  only  to  find  that 
the  stage  also  is  squalid  and  slavish,  and  that  the  will-o'-the- 
wisp  of  gorgeous  freedom  had  jumped  back  to  home  life. 
She  left  the  cheap  theaters  for  the  expensive  luxury  of  Sir 
Joseph's  mansion.  But  that  had  its  squalors  and  slaveries, 
too.  She  had  fled  from  troubled  England  to  joyous  America, 
only  to  find  in  America  a  thousand  distresses. 

Then  her  eyes  had  been  caught  with  the  glitter  of  true 
freedom.  She  would  be  a  builder  of  ships — cast  off  the  re 
straint  of  womanhood  and  be  a  magnificent  builder  of  ships ! 
And  now  she  was  finding  that  this  dream  was  also  a  nightmare. 

Everywhere  she  looked  was  dismay,  futility,  failure.  The 
hot  wave  found  her  an  easy  victim.  A  frightened  servant 


THE    CUP   OF    FURY  191 

who  did  not  know  the  difference  between  sunstroke  and  heat 
prostration  nearly  killed  her  before  a  doctor  came. 

The  doctor  sent  Marie  Louise  to  bed,  and  in  bed  she  stayed. 
It  was  her  trained  nurse  who  wrote  a  letter  to  Mr.  Davidge 
regretting  that  she  could  not  come  to  the  launching  of  the 
Clara.  Abbie  was  not  present,  either.  She  came  up  to  be 
with  Marie  Louise.  This  was  not  the  least  of  Marie  Louise's 
woes. 

She  was  quite  childish  about  missing  the  great  event. 
She  wept  because  another  hand  swung  the  netted  champagne- 
bottle  against  the  bow  as  it  lurched  down  the  toboggan-slide. 

Davidge  wrote  her  about  the  launching,  but  it  was  a  business 
man's  letter,  with  the  poetry  all  smothered.  He  told  her  that 
there  had  been  an  accident  or  two,  and  nearly  a  disaster — an 
unexploded  infernal-machine  had  been  found.  A  scheme  to 
wreck  the  launching-ways  had  been  detected  on  the  final 
inspection. 

Marie  Louise  read  the  letter  aloud  to  Abbie,  and,  even 
though  she  knew  the  ship  was  safe,  trembled  as  if  it  were  still 
in  jeopardy.  Her  shaken  faith  in  humanity  was  still  capable 
of  feeling  bewilderment  at  the  extremes  of  German  savagery. 
She  cried  out  to  her  sister: 

"How  on  earth  can  anybody  be  fiendish  enough  to  have 
tried  to  destroy  that  ship  even  before  it  was  launched?  How 
could  a  German  spy  have  got  into  the  yard?" 

"It  didn't  have  to  have  been  a  German,"  said  Abbie, 
bitterly. 

"Who  else  would  have  wanted  to  play  such  a  dastardly 
trick?  No  American  would!" 

"Well,  it  depends  on  what  you  call  Amurrican,"  said 
Abbie.  "There's  some  them  Independent  workmen  so  in 
dependent  they  ain't  got  any  country  any  more  'n  what 
Cain  had." 

"You  can't  suppose  that  Mr.  Davidge  has  enemies  among 
his  own  people?" 

"O'  course  he  has!  Slews  of  'em.  Some  them  workmen 
can't  forgive  the  man  that  gives  'em  a  job." 

"But  he  pays  big  wages.     Think  of  what  Jake  gets." 

"Oh,  him!  If  he  got  all  they  was,  he'd  holler  he  was  bein' 
cheated.  Hollerin'  and  hatin'  always  come  easy  to  Jake.  If 
they  wasn't  easy,  he  wouldn't  do  'em." 

13 


192  THE    CUP    OF    FURY 

Marie  Louise  gasped:  "Abbie!  In  Heaven's  name,  you 
don't  imply — " 

"No,  I  don't!"  snapped  Abbie.  "I  never  implied  in  my 
life,  and  don't  you  go  sayin'  I  did." 

Abbie  was  at  bay  now.  She  had  to  defend  her  man  from 
outside  suspicion.  Suspicion  of  her  husband  is  a  wife's 
prerogative 

Marie  Louise  was  too  much  absorbed  in  the  general  vision 
of  man's  potential  villainy  to  follow  up  the  individual  clue. 
She  was  frightened  away  from  considering  Jake  as  a  candidate 
for  such  infamy.  Her  wildest  imaginings  never  put  him  in 
association  with  Nicky  Easton. 

There  were  so  many  excursions  and  alarms  in  the  world 
of  1917  that  the  riddle  of  who  tried  to  sink  the  ship  on  dry 
land  joined  a  myriad  others  in  the  riddle  limbo. 

When  Marie  Louise  was  well  enough  to  go  back  to  her 
business  school  she  found  riddles  enough  in  trying  to  decide 
where  this  letter  or  that  had  got  to  on  the  crazy  keyboard, 
or  what  squirmy  shorthand  symbol  it  was  that  represented 
this  syllable  or  that. 

She  had  lost  the  little  speed  she  had  had,  and  it  was  double 
drudgery  regaining  the  forgotten  lore.  But  she  stood  the  gaff 
and  found  herself  on  the  dizzy  height  of  graduation  from  a 
lowly  business  school.  She  had  traveled  a  long  way  from  the 
snobbery  of  her  recent  years. 

Davidge  recognized  her  face  and  her  voice  when  she  pre 
sented  herself  before  him.  But  her  soul  was  an  utter  stranger. 
She  did  not  invite  him  to  call  on  her  or  warn  him  that  she 
was  coming  to  call  on  him. 

She  appeared  in  his  anteroom  and  bribed  one  of  the  clerks 
to  go  to  him  with  a  message: 

"A  young  lady's  outside — wants  a  position — as  a  stenog- 
erpher." 

Davidge  growled  without  looking  up: 

'Why  bother  me?     Send  her  to  the  chief  clerk." 

'She  wants  to  see  you  specially." 

'I'm  out." 

'Said  Miss  Webling  sent  her.' 

'O  Lord! — show  her  in." 

Marie  Louise  entered.     Davidge  looked  up,  leaped  up. 

She  did  not  come  in  with  the  drawing-room,  train-dragging 


THE    CUP    OF    FURY  193 

manner  of  Miss  Webling.  She  did  not  wear  the  insolent 
beauty  of  Mamise  of  the  Musical  Mokes.  She  was  a  white- 
waisted,  plain-skirted  office-woman,  a  businessette.  She  had 
a  neat  little  hat  and  gave  him  a  secretarial  bow. 

He  rushed  to  her  hand,  and  they  had  a  good  laugh  like  two 
children  playing  pretend.  Then  he  said: 

"Why  the  camouflage?" 

The  word  was  not  very  new  even  then,  or  he  would  not 
nave  used  it. 

She  explained,  with  royal  simplicity: 

"I  want  a  job." 

She  brought  out  her  diploma  and  a  certificate  giving  her  a 
civil-service  status.  She  was  quite  conceited  about  it. 

She  insisted  on  displaying  her  accomplishments. 

"Give  me  some  dictation,"  she  dictated. 

He  nodded,  pummeled  his  head  for  an  idea  while  she  took 
from  her  hand-bag,  not  a  vanity-case,  but  a  stenographer's 
note-book  and  a  sheaf  of  pencils. 

He  noted  that  she  sat  down  stenographically — very  con 
cisely.  She  perched  her  note-book  on  the  desk  of  one  crossed 
knee  and  perked  her  eyes  up  as  alertly  as  a  sparrow. 

All  this  professionalism  sat  so  quaintly  on  the  two  Marie 
Louises  he  had  known  that  he  roared  with  laughter  as  at  a 
child  dressed  up. 

She  smiled  patiently  at  his  uproar  till  it  subsided.  Then  he 
sobered  and  began  to  dictate : 

"Ready?  'Miss  Mamise' — cross  that  out — 'Miss  Marie 
Louise  Webling' — you  know  the  address;  I  don't.  'Dear — 
My  dear' — no,  just  'Dear  Miss  Webling.  Reference  is  had 
to  your  order  of  recent  date  that  this  house  engage  you  as 
amanuensis.'  Dictionary  in  the  bookcase  outside — comma — 
no,  period.  '  In  reply  I  would — I  wish  to — I  beg  to — we  beg 
to  say  that  we  should — I  should  just  as  soon  engage  Mona 
Lisa  for  a  stenographer  as  you.'  Period  and  paragraph 

' '  We  have,' — comma, — '  however,' — comma, — ' another  po 
sition  to  offer  you,' — comma, — 'that  is,  as  wife  to  the  senior 
member  of  this  firm. '  Period.  '  The  best  wages  we  can — we 
can  offer  you  are — is  the  use  of  one  large,' — comma, — 
'slightly  damaged  heart  and  a  million  thanks  a  minute.' 
Period.  'Trusting  that  we  may  be  favored  with  a  prompt 
and  favorable  reply,  we  am — I  are — am — yours  very  sin- 


194  THE    CUP    OF    FURY 

cerely,  truly  yours,' — no,  just  say  'yours,'  and  I'll  sign  it. 
By  the  way,  do  you  know  what  the  answer  will  be?" 

"Yes." 

"Do  you  mean  it?" 

"I  mean  that  I  know  the  answer." 

"Let  me  have  it." 

"Can't  you  guess?" 

"'Yes'?" 

"No." 

"Oh!" 

A  long  glum  pause  till  she  said,  "Am  I  fired?' 

"Of  course  not." 

More  pause.     She  intervened  in  his  silence. 

"What  do  I  do  next,  please?" 

He  said,  of  habit,  "Why,  sail  on,  and  on,  and  on." 

He  reached  for  his  basket  of  unanswered  mail.     He  said: 

"I've  given  you  a  sample  of  my  style,  now  you  give  me  a 
sample  of  yours,  and  then  I'll  see  if  I  can  afford  to  keep  you 
as  a  stenographer  instead  of  a  wife." 

She  nodded,  went  to  a  typewriter  in  a  corner  of  his  office, 
and  seated  herself  at  the  musicless  instrument.  Her  heart 
pit-a-patted  as  fast  as  her  fingers,  but  she  drew  up  the  letter 
in  a  handsome  style  while  he  sat  and  stared  at  her  and  mused 
upon  the  strange  radiance  she  brought  into  the  office  in  a 
kind  of  aureole. 

He  grew  abruptly  serious  when  Miss  Gabus,  his  regular 
stenographer,  entered  and  stared  at  the  interloper  with  amaze 
ment,  comma,  suspicion,  comma,  and  hostility,  period.  She 
murmured  a  very  rasping  "I  beg  your  pardon,"  and  stepped 
out,  as  Marie  Louise  rose  from  the  writing-machine  and 
brought  him  an  extraordinarily  accurate  version  of  his  letter. 

And  now  he  had  two  women  on  his  hands  and  one  on  his 
heart.  He  dared  not  oust  Miss  Gabus  for  the  sake  of  Miss 
Webling.  He  dared  not  show  his  devotion  to  Marie  Louise, 
though  as  a  matter  of  fact  it  made  him  glow  like  a  lighthouse. 

He  put  Mamise  to  work  in  the  chief  clerk's  office.  It  was 
noted  that  he  made  many  more  trips  to  that  office  than  ever 
before.  Instead  of  pressing  the  buzzer  for  a  boy  or  a  stenog 
rapher,  he  usually  came  out  himself  on  all  sorts  of  errands. 
His  buzzer  did  not  buzz,  but  the  gossip  did. 

Mamise  was  vaguely  aware  of  it,  and  it  distressed  her  till 


THE    CUP   OF    FURY  195 

she  grew  furious.  She  was  so  furious  at  Davidge  for  not 
being  deft  enough  to  conceal  his  affection  that  she  began 
to  resent  it  as  an  offense  and  not  a  compliment. 

The  impossible  Mamise  insisted  on  taking  up  her  residence 
in  one  of  the  shanties.  When  he  took  the  liberty  of  urging 
her  to  live  at  a  hotel  or  at  some  of  the  more  comfortable 
homes  she  snubbed  him  bluntly.  When  he  desperately  urged 
her  to  take  lunch  or  dinner  with  him  she  drew  herself  up  and 
mocked  the  virtuous  scorn  of  a  movie  stenographer  and  said : 

'  Sir !  I  may  be  only  a  poor  typist,  but  no  wicked  capitalist 
shall  loor  me  to  lunch  with  him.  You'd  probably  drug  the 
wine." 

"Then  will  you—" 

"No,  I  will  not  go  motoring  with  you.     How  dare  you!" 

"May  I  call,  then?" 

More  as  a  punishment  than  a  hospitality,  she  said: 

"Yessir — the  fourteenth  house  on  the  left  side  of  the  road 
is  me." 

The  days  were  still  long  and  the  dark  tardy  when  he  marched 
up  the  street.  It  was  a  gantlet  of  eyes  and  whispers.  He  felt 
inane  to  an  imbecility.  The  whole  village  was  eying  the 
boss  on  his  way  to  spark  a  stenog.  His  little  love-affair 
was  as  clandestine  as  Lady  Godiva's  famous  bareback  ride. ; 

He  cut  his  call  short  after  an  age-long  half -hour  of  enduring 
the  ridicule  twinkling  in  Mamise's  eyes.  He  stayed  just  late 
enough  for  it  to  get  dark  enough  to  conceal  his  return  through 
that  street.  He  was  furious  at  the  situation  and  at  Mamise 
for  teasing  him  so.  But  she  became  all  the  dearer  for  her 
elusiveness. 


CHAPTER  IV 

A7TER  the  novelty  of  the  joke  wore  off  Mamise  grew  as 
uncomfortable  as  he.  She  was  beginning  to  love  him 
more  and  her  job  less.  But  she  was  determined  not  to  throw 
away  her  independence.  Pride  was  her  duenna,  and  a  ruthless 
one.  She  tried  to  feed  her  pride  on  her  ambition  and  on  an 
occasional  visit  to  the  ship  that  was  to  wear  her  name. 

She  met  Sutton,  the  prima  donna  riveter.  He  was  always 
clattering  away  like  a  hungry  woodpecker,  but  he  always  had 
time  to  stop  and  discuss  his  art  with  her. 

Once  or  twice  he  let  her  try  the  riveter — the  "gun,"  he  called 
it;  but  her  thumb  was  not  strong  enough  to  hold  the  trigger 
against  that  hundred-and-fif ty-pound  pressure  per  square  inch. 

One  day  Marie  Louise  came  on  Jake  Nuddle  and  Sutton  in 
a  wrangle.  She  caught  enough  of  the  parley  to  know  that 
Jake  was  sneering  at  Sutton's  waste  of  energy  and  enthusiasm, 
his  long  hours  and  low  pay.  Sutton  earned  a  very  substantial 
income,  but  all  pay  was  low  pay  to  Jake,  who  was  spreading 
the  gospel  of  sabotage  through  the  shipyard. 

Meanwhile  the  good  ship  Clara,  weaned  from  the  dock, 
floated  in  the  basin  and  received  her  equipment.  And  at  last 
the  day  came  when  she  was  ready  for  her  trial  trip. 

That  morning  the  smoke  rolled  from  her  funnels  in  a  twisted 
skein.  What  had  once  been  ore  in  many  a  mine,  and  trees 
in  many  a  forest,  had  become  an  individual,  as  what  has  been 
vegetables  and  fruits  and  the  flesh  of  animals  becomes  at  last 
a  child  with  a  soul,  a  name,  a  fate. 

It  was  impossible  to  think  now  that  the  Clara  was  merely 
an  iron  box  with  an  engine  to  push  it  about.  Clara  was  some 
body,  a  personality,  a  lovable,  whimsical,  powerful  creature. 
She  was  "she"  to  everybody.  And  at  last  one  morning  she 
kicked  up  her  heels  and  took  a  long  white  bone  in  her  teeth 
and  went  her  ways.  • 

The  next  day  Clara  came  back.     There  was  something 


THE    CUP   OF    FURY  197 

about  her  manner  of  sweeping  into  the  bay,  about  the  proud 
look  of  her  as  she  came  to  a  halt,  that  convinced  all  the 
watchers  in  the  shipyard  of  her  success. 

When  they  learned  that  she  had  exceeded  all  her  contract 
stipulations  there  was  a  tumult  of  rejoicing;  for  her  success 
was  the  success  of  every  man  and  lad  in  the  company's 
employ — at  least  so  thought  all  who  had  any  instinct  of  team- 
play  and  collective  pride.  A  few  soreheads  were  glum,  or 
sneered  at  the  enthusiasm  of  the  others.  It  was  strange  that 
Jake  Nuddle  was  associated  with  all  of  these  groups. 

Clara  was  not  permitted  to  linger  and  rest  on  her  laurels. 
She  had  work  to  do.  Every  ship  in  the  world  was  working 
overtime  except  the  German  Kiel  Canal  boats.  Clara  was 
gone  from  the  view  the  next  morning.  Mamise  missed  her  as 
she  looked  from  the  office  window.  She  mentioned  this  to 
Davidge,  for  fear  he  might  not  know.  Somebody  might  have 
stolen  her.  He  explained: 

"She's  going  down  to  Norfolk  to  take  on  a  cargo  of  food 
for  England — wheat  for  the  Allies.  I'm  glad  she's  going  to 
take  breadstuffs  to  people.  My  mother  used  to  be  always 
going  about  to  hungry  folks  with  a  basket  of  food  on  her 
arm." 

Mamise  had  Jake  and  Abbie  in  to  dinner  that  night.  She 
was  all  agog  about  the  success  of  Clara,  and  hoped  that 
Mamise  would  one  day  do  as  well. 

Jake  took  a  sudden  interest  in  the  matter.  ' '  Did  the  boss 
tell  you  where  the  Clara  was  goin'  to?" 

"Yes— Norfolk." 

Jake  considered  his  unmentionable  cigar  a  few  minutes, 
then  rose  and  mumbled: 

"Goin'  out  to  get  some  more  cigars." 

Abbie  called  after  him,  "Hay,  you  got  a  whole  half -box 
left."  But  Jake  did  not  seem  to  hear  the  recall. 

He  came  back  later  cigarless  and  asked  for  the  box. 

"I  thought  you  went  out  to  git  some,"  said  Abbie,  who  felt 
it  necessary  to  let  no  occasion  slip  for  reminding  him  of  some 
blunder  he  had  made.  Jake  laughed  very  amiably. 

"Well,  so  I  did,  and  I  went  into  a  cigar-store,  at  that. 
But  I  hadda  telephone  a  certain  party,  long-distance — and  I 
forgot." 

Abbie  broke  in,  "Who  you  got  to  long-distance  to?" 


198  THE    CUP   OF    FURY 

Jake  did  not  answer. 

Two  days  later  Davidge  was  so  proud  that  he  came  out 
into  the  main  office  and  told  all  the  clerks  of  the  new  dis 
tinction. 

"They  loaded  the  Clara  in  record  time  with  wheat  for 
England.  She  sails  to-day." 

At  his  first  chance  to  speak  to  Marie  Louise  he  said : 

"You  compared  her  to  Little  Red  Riding  Hood — remember? 
Well,  she's  starting  out  through  the  big  woods  with  a  lot  of 
victuals  for  old  Granny  England.  If  only  the  wolves  don't 
get  her!" 

He  felt,  and  Mamise  felt,  as  lonely  and  as  anxious  for  her 
as  if  she  were  indeed  a  little  red-bonneted  forest-farer  on  an 
errand  of  mercy. 

Ships  have  always  been  dear  to  humankind  because  of  the 
dangers  they  run  and  because  of  the  pluck  they  show  in 
storms  and  fires,  and  the  unending  fights  they  make  against 
wind  and  wave.  But  of  late  they  had  had  unheard-of  enemies 
to  meet,  the  submarine  and  the  infernal-machine  placed 
inside  the  cargo. 

Marie  Louise  spoke  of  this  at  the  supper-table  that  night: 

"To  think,  with  so  little  food  in  the  world  and  so  many 
starving  to  death,  people  could  sink  ships  full  of  wheat!" 

On  the  second  day  after  the  Clara  set  forth  on  the  ocean 
Marie  Louise  took  dictation  for  an  hour  and  wrote  out  her 
letters  as  fast  as  she  could.  In  the  afternoon  she  took  the 
typewritten  transcripts  into  Davidge's  office  to  drop  them 
into  his  "in"  basket. 

,.     The  telephone  rang.     His  hand  went  out  to  it,  and  she 
heard  him  say: 

"Mr.  Davidge  speaking.  .  .  .  Hello,  Ed.  .  .  .  What? 
You're  too  close  to  the  'phone.  .  .  .  That's  better.  .  .  .  You're 
too  far  away — start  all  over.  ...  I  don't  get  that.  .  .  .  Yes — a 
life-boat  picked  up  with  what — oh,  six  survivors.  Yes — from 
what  ship?  I  say,  six  survivors  from  what  ship?  .  .  .  The 
Clara?  She's  gone?  Clara?" 

He  reeled  and  wavered  in  his  chair.  "What  happened — 
many  lost?  And  the  boat — cargo — everything — everybody 
but  those  six!  They  got  her,  then!  The  Germans  got  her — 
on  her  first  voyage !  God  damn  their  guts !  Good-by ,  Ed. ' ' 

He  seemed  to  be  calm,  but  the  hand  that  held  up  the 


THE    CUP   OF    FURY  199 

receiver  groped  for  the  hook  with  a  pitiful  blind  man's 
gesture. 

Mamise  could  not  resist  that  blundering  helplessness.  She 
ran  forward  and  took  his  hand  and  set  the  receiver  in  place. 

He  was  too  numb  to  thank  her,  but  he  was  grateful.  His 
mother  was  dead.  The  ship  he  had  named  for  her  was  dead. 
He  needed  mothering. 

Mamise  put  her  hands  on  his  shoulders  and  gripped  them 
as  if  to  hold  them  together  under  their  burden.  She  said: 

"I  heard.  I  can't  tell  you  how —  Oh,  what  can  we  do  in 
such  a  world!" 

He  laughed  foolishly  and  said,  with  a  stumbling  voice: 

"I'll  get  a  German  for  this — somehow!" 


CHAPTER  V 

MAMISE  shuddered  when  she  heard  the  blood-cry  wrung 
out  of  Davidge's  agony. 

She  knew  that  the  ship  was  more  than  a  ship  to  him. 
Its  death  was  as  the  death  of  many  children.  It  might  mean 
the  death  of  many  children.  She  stood  over  him,  weeping 
for  him  like  another  Niobe  among  her  slaughtered  family. 
The  business  man  in  his  tragedy  had  to  have  some  woman  at 
hand  to  do  his  weeping  for  him.  He  did  not  know  how  to 
sob  his  own  heart  out. 

She  felt  the  vigor  of  a  high  anger  grip  his  muscles.  When 
she  heard  him  groan,  "I'll  get  a  German  for  this!"  somehow 
it  horrified  her,  coming  from  him;  yet  it  was  becoming  the 
watchword  of  the  whole  nation. 

America  had  stood  by  for  three  years  feeding  Europe's 
hungry  and  selling  munitions  to  the  only  ones  that  could  come 
and  get  them.  America  had  been  forced  into  the  war  by  the 
idiotic  ingenuities  of  the  Germans,  who  kept  frustrating  all 
their  own  achievements,  the  cruel  ones  thwarting  the  clever 
ones;  the  liars  undermining  the  fighters;  the  wise,  who 
knew  so  much,  not  knowing  the  first  thing — that  torture  never 
succeeded,  that  a  reputation  for  broken  faith  is  the  most 
expensive  of  all  reputations,  that  a  policy  of  terror  and 
trickery  and  megalomania  can  accomplish  nothing  but  its 
own  eventual  ruin. 

America  was  aroused  at  last.  The  German  rhinoceros  in 
its  blind  charges  had  wakened  and  enraged  the  mammoth. 
A  need  for  German  blood  was  the  frank  and  undeniable  pas 
sion  of  the  American  Republic.  To  kill  enough  Germans  fast 
enough  to  crush  them  and  their  power  and  their  glory  was  the 
acknowledged  business  of  the  United  States  until  further 
notice. 

The  strangest  people  were  voicing  this  demand.  Preachers 
were  thundering  it  across  their  pulpits,  professors  across  their 


THE    CUP   OF    FURY  201 

desks,  women  across  their  cradles,  pacifists  across  their  shat 
tered  dreams,  business  men  across  their  counters,  "Kill 
Germans!" 

It  was  a  frightful  crusade;  yet  who  was  to  blame  for  it  but 
the  Germans  and  their  own  self -advertised  f rightfulness  ?  The 
world  was  fighting  for  its  life  and  health  against  a  plague,  a 
new  outrush  from  that  new  plague-spot  whence  so  many 
floods  of  barbarism  had  broken  over  civilization. 

They  came  forth  now  in  gray  streams  like  the  torrent  of  rats 
that  pursued  the  wicked  Bishop  Hatto  to  his  tower.  Only  the 
world  was  not  Bishop  Hatto,  and  it  did  not  flee.  It  gathered  to 
one  vast  circular  battle,  killing  and  killing  rats  upon  rats  in  a 
frenzy  of  loathing  that  grew  with  the  butchery. 

Countless  citizens  of  German  origin  fought  and  died  with 
the  Americans,  but  nobody  thought  of  them  as  Germans  now, 
and  least  of  all  did  they  so  think  of  themselves.  In  the  mind 
of  the  Allied  nations,  German  and  vermin  were  linked  in 
rhyme  and  reason. 

It  may  be  unjust  and  unsympathetic,  but  the  very  best 
people  feel  it  a  duty  to  destroy  microbes,  insects,  and  beasts 
of  prey  without  mercy.  The  Germans  themselves  had  pro 
claimed  their  own  nature  with  pride.  Peaceful  Belgium — 
invaded,  burned,  butchered,  ravished,  dismantled,  mulcted, 
deported,  enslaved — was  the  first  sample  of  German  work. 

Davidge  had  hated  Germany's  part  in  the  war  from  the  first, 
for  the  world's  sake,  for  the  sake  of  the  little  nations  trampled 
and  starved  and  the  big  nations  thrown  into  desperation,  and 
for  the  insolence  and  omnipresence  of  the  German  menace — for 
the  land  filled  with  graves,  the  sea  with  ships,  the  air  with  indis 
criminate  slaughter. 

Now  it  had  come  straight  home  to  himself.  His  own  ship 
was  assassinated;  the  hill  of  wheat  she  carried  had  been 
spilled  into  the  sterile  sea.  Nearly  all  of  her  crew  had 
been  murdered  or  drowned.  He  had  a  blood-feud  of  his 
own  with  Germany. 

He  was  startled  to  find  Mamise  recoiling  from  him.  He 
looked  at  her  with  a  sudden  demand: 

"Does  it  shock  you  to  have  me  hate  'em?" 

" No !  No,  indeed !"  she  cried.  "I  wasn't  thinking  of  them, 
but  of  you.  I  never  saw  you  before  like  this.  You  scared  me 
a  little.  I  didn't  know  you  could  be  so  angry." 


202  THE    CUP   OF    FURY 

"  I'm  not  half  as  angry  as  I'd  like  to  be.  Don't  you  abom 
inate  'em,  too?" 

"Oh  yes — I  wish  that  Germany  were  one  big  ship  and  all 
the  Germans  on  board,  and  I  had  a  torpedo  big  enough  to 
blast  them  all  to — where  they  belong." 

This  wish  seemed  to  him  to  prove  a  sufficient  lack  of  af 
fection  for  the  Germans,  and  he  added,  "Amen!"  with  a  little 
nervous  reaction  into  uncouth  laughter. 

But  this  was  only  another  form  of  his  anguish.  At  such 
times  the  distraught  soul  seems  to  have  need  of  all  its 
emotions  and  expressions,  and  to  run  among  them  like  a 
frantic  child. 

Davidge's  next  mood  was  a  passionate  regret  for  the  crew, 
the  dead  engineers  and  sailors  shattered  and  blasted  and 
cast  into  the  sea,  the  sufferings  of  the  little  squad  that  escaped 
into  a  life-boat  without  water  or  provisions  or  shelter  from 
the  sun  and  the  lashing  spray. 

Then  he  pictured  the  misery  of  hunger  that  the  ship's  cargo 
would  have  relieved.  He  had  been  reading  much  of  late  of  the 
Armenian — what  word  or  words  could  name  that  woe  so 
multitudinous  that,  like  the  number  of  the  stars,  the  mind 
refused  to  attempt  its  comprehension? 

He  saw  one  of  those  writhing  columns  winding  through  a 
rocky  wilderness — old  crones  knocked  aside  to  shrivel  with 
famine,  babies  withering  like  blistered  flowers  from  the 
flattened  breasts  of  their  mothers  dying  with  hunger,  fatigue, 
blows,  violation,  and  despair.  He  thought  of  Poland  childless 
and  beyond  pity;  of  the  Serbian  shambles.  The  talons  of 
hunger  a  millionfold  clutched  him,  and  he  groaned  aloud: 

"  Lr  they'd  only  stolen  my  wheat  and  given  it  to  somebody — 
to  anybody!  But  to  pour  it  into  the  sea!" 

He  could  not  linger  in  that  slough  and  stay  sane.  His 
struggling  soul  broke  loose  from  the  depths  and  hunted  safety 
in  self -ridicule : 

"  I  might  better  have  left  the  wheat  at  home  and  never  have 
built  the  fool  ship." 

He  began  to  laugh  again,  an  imbecile  ironic  cachinnation. 

"The  blithering  idiot  I've  been !  To  go  and  work  and  work 
and  work,  and  drive  my  men  and  all  the  machinery  for  months 
and  months  to  make  a  ship  and  put  in  the  engines  and  send 
it  down  and  load  it,  and  all  for  some" — a  gesture  expressed 


THE    CUP   OF    FURY  203 

his  unspeakable  thought — "of  a  German  to  blow  it  to  hell 
and  gone,  with  'a  little  clock-bomb  in  one  second!" 

In  his  abysmal  discouragement  his  ideals  were  all  topsy 
turvy.  He  burlesqued  his  own  religion  as  the  most  earnest 
constantly  do,  for  we  all  revolve  around  ourselves  as  well  as 
our  suns. 

"What's  the  use,"  he  maundered — "what's  the  use  of 
trying  to  do  anything  while  they're  alive  and  at  work  right 
here  in  our  country?  They're  everywhere!  They  swarm 
like  cockroaches  out  of  every  hole  as  soon  as  the  light  gets 
low !  We've  got  to  blister  'em  all  to  death  with  rough-on-rats 
before  we  can  build  anything  that  will  last.  There's  no 
stopping  them  without  wiping  'em  off  the  earth." 

She  did  not  argue  with  him.  At  such  times  people  do  not 
want  arguments  or  good  counsel  or  correction.  They  want 
somebody  to  stand  by  in  mute  fellowship  to  watch  and  listen 
and  suffer,  too.  So  Mamise  helped  Davidge  through  that 
ordeal.  He  turned  from  rage  at  the  Germans  to  contempt 
for  himself. 

"It's  time  I  quit  out  of  this  and  went  to  work  with  the  army. 
It  makes  me  sick  to  be  here  making  ships  for  Germans  to  sink. 
The  thing  to  do  is  to  kill  the  Germans  first  and  build  the  ships 
when  the  sea  is  safe  for  humanity.  I'm  ashamed  of  myself 
sitting  in  an  office  shooting  with  a  telephone  and  giving  out 
plans  and  contracts  and  paying  wages  to  a  gang  of  mechanics. 
It's  me  for  a  rifle  and  a  bayonet." 

Mamise  had  to  oppose  this: 

"Who's  going  to  get  you  soldiers  across  the  sea  or  feed  you 
when  you  get  there  if  all  the  ship-builders  turn  soldier?" 

"Let  somebody  else  do  it." 

"But  who  can  do  it  as  well  as  you  can?  The  Germans  said 
that  America  could  never  put  an  army  across  or  feed  it  if  she 
got  it  there.  If  you  go  on  strike  you'll  prove  the  truth  of 
that." 

Then  she  began  to  chant  his  own  song  to  him.  A  man  likes 
to  hear  his  nobler  words  recalled.  Here  is  one  of  the  best  re 
sources  a  woman  has.  Mamise  was  speaking  for  him  as  well 
as  for  herself  when  she  said: 

"Oh,  I  remember  how  you  thrilled  me  with  your  talk  of  all 
the  ships  you  would  build.  You  said  it  was  the  greatest  poem 
ever  written,  the  idea  of  making  ships  faster  than  the  Germans 


204  THE    CUP    OF    FURY 

could  sink  them.  It  was  that  that  made  me  want  to  be  a 
ship-builder.  It  was  the  first  big  ambition  I  ever  had.  And 
now  you  tell  me  it's  useless  and  foolish!" 

He  saw  the  point  without  further  pressure. 

"You're  right,"  he  said.  "My  job's  here.  It  would  be 
selfish  and  showy  to  knock  off  this  work  and  grab  a  gun.  I'll 
stick.  It's  hard,  though,  to  settle  down  here  when  everybody 
else  is  bound  for  France." 

Mamise  was  one  of  those  unusual  wise  persons  who  do  not 
continue  to  argue  a  case  that  has  already  been  won.  She  added 
only  the  warm  personal  note  to  help  out  the  cold  generality. 

"There's  my  ship  to  finish,  you  know.  You  couldn't  leave 
poor  Mamise  out  there  on  the  stocks  unfinished." 

The  personal  note  was  so  warm  that  he  reached  out  for  her. 
He  needed  her  in  his  arms.  He  caught  her  roughly  to  him  and 
knew  for  the  first  time  the  feel  of  her  body  against  his,  the 
sweet  compliance  of  her  form  to  his  embrace. 

But  there  was  an  anachronism  to  her  in  the  contact.  She 
was  in  one  of  those  moods  of  exaltation,  of  impersonal  na 
tionalism,  that  women  were  rising  to  more  and  more  as  a  new 
religion.  She  was  feeling  terribly  American,  and,  though 
she  had  no  anger  for  him  and  saw  no  insult  in  his  violence, 
she  seemed  to  be  above  and  beyond  mere  hugging  and  kissing. 
She  was  in  a  Joan  of  Arc  humor,  so  she  put  his  hands  away, 
yet  squeezed  them  with  fervor,  for  she  knew  that  she  had 
saved  him  from  himself  and  to  himself.  She  had  brought  him 
back  to  his  east  again,  and  the  morning  is  always  wonderful. 

She  had  renewed  his  courage,  however,  so  greatly  that  he 
did  not  despair  of  her.  He  merely  postponed  her,  as  people 
were  postponing  everything  beautiful  and  lovable  "for  the 
duration  of  the  war." 

He  reached  for  the  buzzer.  Already  Mamise  heard  its 
rattlesnake  clatter.  But  his  hand  paused  and  went  to  hers 
as  he  stammered: 

"We've  gone  through  this  together,  and  you've  helped  me — 
I  can't  tell  you  how  much,  honey.  Only,  I  hope  we  can  go 
through  a  lot  more  trouble  together.  There's  plenty  of  it 
ahead." 

She  felt  proud  and  meek  and  dismally  happy.  She  squeezed 
his  big  hand  again  in  both  of  hers  and  sighed,  with  a  smile : 

"I  hope  so." 


THE    CUP    OF    FURY  205 

Then  he  pressed  the  buzzer,  and  Miss  Gabus  was  inside  the 
door  with  suspicious  promptitude.  Davidge  said: 

"Mr.  Avery,  please — and  the  others — all  the  others  right 
away.  Ask  them  to  come  here;  and  you  might  come  back, 
Miss  Gabus." 

Mr.  Avery,  the  chief  clerk,  and  other  clerks  and  stenog 
raphers,  gathered,  wondering  what  was  about  to  happen. 
Some  of  them  came  grinning,  for  when  they  had  asked  Miss 
Gabus  what  was  up  she  had  guessed:  "I  reckon  he's  goin'  to 
announce  his  engagement." 

The  office  force  came  in  like  an  ill-drilled  comic-opera 
chorus.  Davidge  waited  till  the  last-comer  was  waiting. 
Then  he  said: 

"Folks,  I've  just  had  bad  news.  The  Clara — they  got  her! 
The  Germans  got  her.  She  was  blown  up  by  a  bomb.  She 
was  two  days  out  and  going  like  a  greyhound  when  she  sank 
with  all  on  board  except  six  of  the  crew  who  got  away  in  a  life 
boat  and  were  picked  up  by  a  tramp." 

There  was  a  shock  of  silence,  then  a  hubbub  of  gasps,  oaths, 
of  incredulous  protests. 

Miss  Gabus  was  the  first  to  address  Davidge: 

"  My  Gawd!     Mr.  Davidge,  what  you  goin'  to  do  about  it?" 

They  thought  him  a  man  of  iron  when  he  said,  quietly: 

"We'll  build  some  more  ships.  And  if  they  sink  those 
we'll — build  some  more." 

He  was  a  man  of  iron,  but  iron  can  bend  and  break  and  melt, 
and  so  can  steel.  Yet  there  is  a  renewal  of  strength,  and, 
thanks  to  Mamise,  Davidge  was  recalled  to  himself,  though 
he  was  too  shrewd  or  too  tactful  to  give  her  the  credit  for 
redeeming  him. 

His  resolute  words  gave  the  office  people  back  to  their  own 
characters  or  their  own  reactions  and  their  first  phrases.  Each 
had  something  to  say.  One,  "She  was  such  a  pretty  boat!" 
another,  "Was  she  insured,  d'you  suppose?"  a  third,  a  fourth, 
and  the  rest:  "The  poor  engineer — and  the  sailors!"  "All 
that  work  for  nothin' !"  "The  money  she  cost!"  "The  Bel 
gians  could  'a'  used  that  wheat!"  "Those  Germans!  Is  there 
anything  they  won't  do?" 

The  chief  clerk  shepherded  them  back  to  their  tasks. 
Davidge  took  up  the  telephone  to  ask  for  more  steel.  Mamise 
renewed  the  cheerful  rap-rap-rap  of  her  typewriter. 


206  THE    CUP    OF    FURY 

The  shock  that  struck  the  office  had  yet  to  rush  through  the 
yard.  There  was  no  lack  of  messengers  to  go  among  the 
men  with  the  bad  word  that  the  first  of  the  Davidge  ships 
had  been  destroyed.  It  was  a  personal  loss  to  nearly  every 
body,  as  it  had  been  to  Davidge,  for  nearly  everybody  had 
put  some  of  his  soul  and  some  of  his  sweat  into  that  slow  and 
painful  structure  so  instantly  annulled.  The  mockery  of  the 
wasted  toil  embittered  every  one.  The  wrath  of  the  workers 
was  both  loud  and  ferocious. 

Jake  Nuddle  was  one  of  the  few  who  did  not  revile  the  Ger 
man  plague.  He  was  not  in  the  least  excited  over  the  dead 
sailors.  They  did  not  belong  to  his  union.  Besides,  Jake 
did  not  love  work  or  the  things  it  made.  He  claimed  to  love 
the  workers  and  the  money  they  made. 

He  was  tactless  enough  to  say  to  a  furious  orator: 

"Ah,  what's  it  to  you?  The  more  ships  the  Germans  sink 
the  more  you  got  to  build  and  the  more  they'll  have  to  pay 
you.  If  Davidge  goes  broke,  so  much  the  better.  The  sooner 
we  bust  these  capitalists  the  sooner  the  workin'-man  gets  his 
rights." 

The  orator  retorted :  "This  is  war-times.  We  got  to  make 
ships  to  win  the  war." 

Jake  laughed.  "  Whose  war  is  it  ?  The  capitalists'.  You're 
fightin'  for  Morgan  and  Rockefeller  to  save  their  investments 
and  to  help  'em  to  grind  you  into  the  dirt.  England  and 
France  and  America  are  all  land-grabbers.  They're  no 
better  'n  Germany." 

The  workers  wanted  a  scapegoat,  and  Jake  unwittingly 
volunteered.  They  welcomed  him  with  a  bloodthirsty  roar. 
They  called  him  vigorous  shipyard  names  and  struck  at  him. 
He  backed  off .  They  followed.  He  made  a  crucial  mistake ; 
he  whirled  and  ran.  They  ran  after  him.  Some  of  them 
threw  hammers  and  bolts.  Some  of  these  struck  him  as  he 
fled.  Workmen  ahead  of  him  were  roused  by  the  noise  and 
headed  him  off. 

He  darted  through  an  opening  in  the  side  of  the  Mamise. 
The  crowd  followed  him,  chased  him  out  on  an  upper  deck. 

"Throw  him  overboard!     Kill  him!"  they  shouted. 

He  took  refuge  behind  Sutton  the  riveter,  whose  gun  had 
made  such  noise  that  he  had  heard  none  of  the  clamor.  Seeing 
Jake's  white  face  and  the  mark  of  a  thrown  monkey-wrench 


THE    CUP   OF    FURY  207 

on  his  brow,  Sutton  shut  off  the  compressed  air  and  con 
fronted  the  pursuers.  He  was  naked  to  the  waist,  and  he  had 
no  weapon,  but  he  held  them  at  bay  while  he  demanded: 

"What's  the  big  idea?  What  you  playin'?  Puss  in  a 
corner?  How  many  of  yous  guys  does  it  take  to  lick  this  one 
gink?" 

A  burly  patriot,  who  forgot  that  his  name  and  nis  accent 
were  Teutonic,  roared: 

"Der  sneagin'  Sohn  off  a  peach  ain't  sorry  die  Clara  is  by 
dose  tarn  Chermans  gesunken!" 

"What!"  Sutton  howled.  "The  Clara  sunk?  Whatya  mean 
— sunk?" 

Bohlmann  told  him.  Sutton  wavered.  He  had  driven 
thousands  of  rivets  into  the  frame  of  the  ship,  and  a  little 
explosive  had  opened  all  the  seams  and  ended  her  days! 
When  at  last  he  understood  the  Clara's  fate  and  Nuddle's 
comments  he  turned  to  Jake  with  baleful  calm: 

"And  you  thought  it  was  good  business,  did  you?  And 
these  fellers  was  thinkin'  about  lynchin'  you,  was  they?  Well, 
they're  all  wrong — they're  all  wrong:  we'd  ought  to  save 
lynchin'  for  real  guys.  What  you  need  is  somethin'  like — 
this!" 

His  terrific  fist  lashed  out  and  caught  Jake  in  the  right  eye. 
Jake  in  a  daze  of  indignation  and  amazement  went  over  back 
ward;  his  head  struck  the  steel  deck,  and  his  soul  went  out. 
When  it  came  back  he  lay  still  for  a  while,  pretending  to  be 
unconscious  until  the  gang  had  dispersed,  satisfied,  and  Sutton 
was  making  ready  to  begin  riveting  again.  Then  he  picked 
himself  up  and  edged  round  Sutton,  growling: 

"I'll  fix  you  for  this,  you — " 

Sutton  did  not  wait  to  learn  what  Jake  was  going  to  call 
him.  His  big  foot  described  an  upward  arc,  and  Jake  a 
parabola,  ending  in  a  drop  that  almost  took  him  through  an 
open  hatch  into  the  depth  of  the  hold.  He  saved  himself, 
peering  over  the  edge,  too  weak  for  words — hunched  back, 
crawled  around  the  steel  abyss,  and  betook  himself  to  a  safe 
hiding-place  under  the  tank-top  till  the  siren  should  blow 
and  disperse  his  enemies. 
14 


CHAPTER  VI 

'"PHE  office  force  left  pretty  promptly  on  the  hour.  When 
1  Mamise  noted  that  desks  were  being  cleared  for  inac 
tion  she  began  mechanically  to  conform.  Then  she  paused. 

On  other  afternoons  she  had  gone  home  with  the  crowd  of 
employees,  too  weary  with  office  routine  to  be  discontent. 
But  now  she  thought  of  Davidge  left  alone  in  his  office  to 
brood  over  his  lost  ship,  the  brutal  mockery  of  such  loving 
toil.  It  seemed  heartless  to  her  as  his  friend  to  desert  him 
in  the  depths.  But  as  one  of  his  stenographers,  it  would  look 
shameless  to  hang  round  with  the  boss.  She  shifted  from  foot 
to  foot  and  from  resolve  to  resolve. 

Their  relations  were  undergoing  as  many  strains  and  stresses 
as  a  ship's  frame  in  the  various  waves  and  weathers  that  con 
front  it.  She  had  picked  up  some  knowledge  of  the  amazing 
twists  a  ship  encounters  at  rest  and  in  motion — stresses  in 
still  water,  with  cargo  and  without,  hogging  and  sagging 
stresses,  seesaw  strains,  tensile,  compressive,  transverse,  rack 
ing,  pounding;  bumps,  blows,  collisions,  oscillations,  running 
aground — stresses  that  crumpled  steel  or  scissored  the  rivets 
in  two. 

It  was  hard  to  foresee  the  critical  stress  that  should  mean 
life  or  death  to  the  ship  and  its  people.  Some  went  humbly 
forth  and  came  home  with  rich  cargo;  some  steamed  out  in 
pride  and  never  came  back;  some  limped  in  from  the  sea 
racked  and  ruined;  some  ran  stupidly  ashore  in  fogs;  some 
fought  indomitably  through  incredible  tempests.  Some  died 
dramatic  deaths  on  cliffs  where  tidal  waves  hammered  them 
to  shreds;  some  turned  turtle  at  their  docks  and  went  down 
in  the  mud.  Some  led  long  and  honorable  lives,  and  others, 
beginning  with  glory,  degenerated  into  cattle-ships  or  coastal 
tramps. 

People  were  but  ships  and  bound  for  as  many  destinations 
and  destinies.  Their  fates  depended  as  much  and  yet  as 


THE    CUP    OF    FURY  209 

little  on  their  pilots  and  engineers,  their  engines  and  their 
frames.  The  test  of  the  ship  and  of  the  person  was  the  daily 
drudgery  and  the  unforeseen  emergency. 

Davidge  believed  in  preliminary  tests  of  people  and  boats. 
Before  he  hired  a  man  or  trusted  a  partner  he  inquired  into  his 
past  performances.  He  had  been  unable  to  insist  on  investi 
gation  in  the  recent  mad  scramble  for  labor  due  to  the  sudden 
withdrawal  into  the  national  army  of  nearly  every  male 
between  twenty-one  and  thirty-one  and  of  hundreds  of 
thousands  of  volunteers  of  other  ages. 

He  had  given  his  heart  to  Marie  Louise  Webling,  of  whom 
he  knew  little  except  that  she  would  not  tell  him  much. 
And  on  her  dubious  voucher  he  had  taken  Jake  Nuddle  into 
his  employ.  Now  he  had  to  accept  them  as  he  had  to  accept 
steel,  taking  it  as  it  came  and  being  glad  to  get  any  at  all. 

Hitherto  he  had  insisted  on  preliminary  proofs.  He  wanted 
no  steel  in  a  ship's  hull  or  in  any  part  of  her  that  had  not 
behaved  well  in  the  shop  tests,  in  the  various  machines  that 
put  the  metal  under  bending  stress,  cross-breaking,  hammer 
ing,  drifting,  shearing,  elongation,  contraction,  compression, 
deflection,  tension,  and  torsion  stresses.  The  best  of  the 
steels  had  their  elastic  limits;  there  was  none  that  did  not 
finally  snap. 

Once  this  point  was  found,  the  individual  metal  was  placed 
according  to  its  quality,  the  responsibility  imposed  on  it  being 
only  a  tenth  of  its  proved  capacity.  That  ought  to  have  been 
enough  of  a  margin  of  safety.  Yet  it  did  not  prevent  disasters. 

People  could  not  always  be  put  to  such  shop  tests  before 
hand.  A  reference  or  two,  a  snap  judgment  based  on  first 
impressions,  ushered  a  man  or  a  woman  into  a  place  where 
weakness  or  malice  could  do  incalculable  harm.  In  every 
institution,  as  in  every  structure,  these  danger-spots  exist. 
Davidge,  for  all  his  care  and  knowledge  of  people,  could 
only  take  the  best  he  could  get. 

Jake  Nuddle  had  got  past  the  sentry-line  with  ludicrous 
ease  and  had  contrived  already  the  ruin  of  one  ship.  His 
program,  which  included  all  the  others,  had  had  a  little  set 
back,  but  he  could  easily  regain  his  lost  ground,  for  the 
mob  had  vented  its  rage  against  him  and  was  appeased. 

Mamise  was  inside  the  sentry-lines,  too,  both  of  Davidge's 
shop  and  his  heart.  Her  purposes  were  loyal,  but  she  was 


210  THE    CUP   OF    FURY 

drifting  toward  a  supreme  stress  that  should  try  her  inmost 
fiber.  And  at  the  moment  she  felt  an  almost  unbearable 
strain  in  the  petty  decision  of  whether  to  go  with  the  clerks 
or  stop  with  the  boss. 

Mamise  was  not  so  much  afraid  of  what  the  clerks  would 
say  of  her.  It  was  Davidge  that  she  was  protecting.  She 
did  not  want  to  have  them  talking  about  him — as  if  anything 
could  have  stopped  them  from  that! 

While  she  debated  between  being  unselfish  enough  to  leave 
him  unconsoled  and  being  selfish  enough  to  stay,  she  spent 
so  much  time  that  the  outer  office  was  empty,  anyway. 

Seeing  herself  alone,  she  made  a  quick  motion  toward  the 
door.  Miss  Gabus  came  out,  stared  violently,  and  said: 

"Was  you  goin'  in?" 

"No — oh  no!"  said  Mamise.  "I  left  something  in  my 
desk." 

She  opened  her  desk,  took  out  a  pencil-nub  and  hurried 
away,  ostentatiously  passing  the  other  clerks  as  they  struggled 
across  the  yard  to  the  gate. 

She  walked  to  her  shanty  and  found  it  all  pins  and  needles. 
She  was  so  desperate  that  she  went  to  see  her  sister. 

Marie  Louise  found  Abbie  in  her  kitchen,  sewing  buttons 
on  the  extremely  personal  property  of  certain  bachelors  whom 
she  washed  for  in  spite  of  Jake's  high  earnings — from  which 
she  benefited  no  more  than  before.  If  Jake  had  come  into  a 
million,  or  shattered  the  world  to  bits  and  then  rebuilt  it 
nearer  to  his  heart's  desire,  he  would  not  have  had  enough  to 
make  much  difference  to  Abbie.  Mamise  had  made  many 
handsome  presents  to  Abbie,  but  somehow  they  vanished,  or 
at  least  got  Abbie  no  farther  along  the  road  to  contentment 
or  grace. 

Mamise  was  full  of  the  story  of  the  disaster  to  the  Clara.  She 
drew  Abbie  into  the  living-room  away  from  the  children,  who 
were  playing  in  the  kitchen  because  it  was  full  of  the  savor  of 
the  forthcoming  supper. 

"Abbie  dear,  have  you  heard  the  news?" 

Abbie  gasped,  "Oh  God,  is  anything  happened  to  Jake — 
killed  or  arrested  or  anything?" 

"No,  no — but  Clara — the  Clara — " 

"Clara  who?" 

"The  ship,  the  first  ship  we  built,  she's  destroyed." 


THE    CUP   OF    FURY  211 

"For  the  land's  sake!  I  want  to  know!  Well,  what  you 
know  about  that!" 

Abbie  could  not  rise  to  very  lofty  heights  of  emotion  or 
language  over  anything  impersonal.  She  made  hardly  so 
much  noise  over  this  tragedy  as  a  hen  does  over  the  delivery 
of  an  egg. 

Mamise  was  distressed  by  her  stolidity.  She  understood 
with  regret  why  Jake  did  not  find  Abbie  an  ideal  inspirational 
companion.  She  hated  to  think  well  of  Jake  or  ill  of  her 
sister,  but  one  cannot  help  receiving  impressions. 

She  did  her  best  to  stimulate  Abbie  to  a  decent  warmth, 
but  Abbie  was  as  immune  to  such  appeals  as  those  people  were 
who  were  still  wondering  why  America  went  to  war  with 
Germany. 

Abbie  was  entirely  perfunctory  in  her  responses  to  Mamise's 
pictures  of  the  atrocity.  She  grew  really  indignant  when  she 
looked  at  the  clock  and  saw  that  Jake  was  late  to  dinner. 
She  broke  in  on  Mamise's  excitement  with  a  distressful : 

"And  we  got  steak  'n'  cab'ge  for  supper." 

"I  must  hurry  back  to  my  own  shack,"  said  Mamise,  rising. 

"You  stay  right  where  you  are.  You're  goin'  to  eat  with 
us." 

"Not  to-night,  thanks,  dear." 

She  kept  no  servant  of  her  own.  She  enjoyed  the  cir 
cumstance  of  getting  her  meals.  She  was  camping  out  in  her 
shanty.  To-night  she  wanted  to  be  busy  about  something 
especially  about  a  kitchen — the  machine-shop  of  the  woman 
who  wants  to  be  puttering  at  something. 

She  was  dismally  lonely,  but  she  was  not  equal  to  a  supper 
at  Jake's.  She  would  have  liked  a  few  children  of  her  own, 
but  she  was  glad  that  she  did  not  own  the  Nuddle  children, 
especially  the  elder  two. 

The  Nuddles  had  given  three  hostages  to  Fortune.  Jake 
cared  little  whether  Fortune  kept  the  hostages  or  not,  or 
whether  or  not  she  treated  them  as  the  Germans  treated 
Belgian  hostages. 

Little  Sister  was  the  oldest  of  the  trio  completed  by  Little 
Brother  and  a  middle-sized  bear  named  Sam.  Sis  and  Sam 
were  juvenile  anarchists  born  with  those  gifts  of  mischief, 
envy,  indolence,  and  denunciation  that  Jake  and  the  literary 
press-agents  of  the  same  spirit  flattered  as  philosophy  or  even 


212  THE    CUP   OF    FURY 

as  philanthropy.  Little  Brother  was  a  quiet,  patient  gnome 
with  quaint  instincts  of  industry  and  accumulation.  He  was 
always  at  work  at  something.  His  mud-pie  bakery  was 
famous  for  two  blocks.  He  gathered  bright  pebbles  and 
shells.  In  the  marble  season  he  was  a  plutocrat  in  taws  and 
agates.  Being  always  busy,  he  always  had  time  to  do  more 
things.  He  even  volunteered  to  help  his  mother.  When  he 
got  an  occasional  penny  he  hoarded  it  in  hiding.  He  had 
need  to,  for  Sam  borrowed  what  he  could  and  stole  what  he 
could  not  wheedle. 

Little  Brother  was  not  stingy,  but  he  saved;  he  bought  his 
mother  petty  gifts  once  in  a  while  when  he  had  enough  to  pay 
for  something. 

Little  Sister  and  Sam  were  capable  in  emotional  crises  of 
sympathy  or  hatred  to  express  themselves  volubly.  Little 
Brother  had  no  gifts  of  speech.  He  made  gifts  of  pebbles  or 
of  money  awkwardly,  shyly,  with  few  words.  Mamise,  as 
she  tried  to  extricate  herself  from  Abbie's  lassoing  hospitality, 
paused  in  the  door  and  studied  the  children,  contrasting  them 
with  the  Webling  grandchildren  who  had  been  born  with 
gold  spoons  in  their  mouths  and  somebody  to  take  them  out, 
fill  them,  and  put  them  in  again.  But  luxury  seemed  to  make 
small  difference  in  character. 

She  mused  upon  the  three  strange  beings  that  had  come 
into  the  world  as  a  result  of  the  chance  union  of  Jake  and 
Abbie.  Without  that  they  would  never  have  existed  and  the 
world  would  have  never  known  the  difference,  nor  would  they. 

Sis  and  Sam  were  quarreling  vigorously.  Little  Brother 
was  silent  upon  the  hearth.  He  had  collected  from  the  gutter 
many  small  stones  and  sticks.  They  were  treasures  to  him 
and  he  was  as  important  about  them  as  a  miser  about  his 
shekels.  Again  and  again  he  counted  them,  taking  a  pleasure 
in  their  arithmetic.  Already  he  was  advanced  in  mathe 
matics  beyond  the  others  and  he  loved  to  arrange  his  wealth 
for  the  sheer  delight  of  arrangement;  orderliness  was  an 
instinct  with  him  already. 

For  a  time  Mamise  noted  how  solemnly  he  kept  at  work, 
building  a  little  stone  house  and  painfully  making  it  stand. 
He  was  a  home-builder  already. 

Sam  h?d  paid  no  heed  to  the  work.  But,  wondering  what 
Mamise  was  looking  at,  he  turned  and  saw  his  brother.  A 


THE   CUP   OF    FURY  213 

grin  stretched  his  mouth.  Little  Brother  grew  anxious.  He 
knew  that  when  something  he  had  builded  interested  Sam  its 
doom  was  close. 

"Whass  'at?"  said  Sam. 

"None  yer  business,"  said  Little  Brother,  as  spunky  as 
Belgium  before  the  Kaiser. 

"  'S'ouse,  ain't  it?" 

"You  lea'  me  'lone,  now!" 

"Where  d'you  git  it  at?" 

"I  built  it." 

"Gimme't!" 

"You  build  you  one  for  your  own  self  now." 

"  'At  one's  good  enough  for  me." 

"Maw!    You  make  Sam  lea'  my  youse  alone." 

Mrs.  Nuddle  moaned:  "Sammie,  don't  bother  Little 
Brother  now.  You  go  on  about  your  own  business." 

Smash !  splash !  Sam  had  kicked  the  house  into  ruins  with 
the  side  of  his  foot. 

Mamise  was  so  angry  that  before  she  knew  it  she  had 
darted  at  him  and  smacked  him  with  violence.  Instantly 
she  was  ashamed  of  herself.  Sam  began  to  rub  his  face  and 
yowl: 

"Maw,  she  gimme  a  swipe  in  the  snoot!  She  hurt  me, 
so  she  did." 

Mamise  was  disgusted.  Abbie  appeared  at  the  door  equally 
disgusted;  it  was  intolerable  that  any  one  should  slap  her 
children  but  herself.  She  had  accepted  too  much  of  Mamise's 
money  to  be  very  indignant,  but  she  did  rise  to  a  wail: 

"Seems  to  me,  Mamise,  you  might  keep  your  hands  off  my 
childern." 

"I'm  sorry.  I  forgot  myself.  But  Sam  is  so  like  his  father 
I  just  couldn't  help  taking  a  whack  at  him.  The  little  bully 
knocked  over  his  brother's  house  just  to  hear  it  fall.  When 
he  grows  up  he'll  be  just  as  much  of  a  nuisance  as  Jake  and 
he'll  call  it  syndicalism  or  internationalism  or  something,  just 
as  Jake  does." 

Jake  came  in  on  the  scene.  He  brought  home  his  black 
eye  and  a  white  story. 

When  Abbie  gasped,  "What  on  earth's  the  matter?"  he 
growled:  "I  bumped  into  a  girder.  Whatya  s'pose?" 

Abbie  accepted  the  eye  as  a  fact  and  the  story  as  a  fiction, 


2i4  THE    CUP   OF    FURY 

but  she  knew  that,  however  Jake  stood  in  the  yard,  as  a  pugilist 
he  was  the  home  champion. 

She  called  Little  Sister  to  bring  from  the  ice-box  a  slice  of 
the  steak  she  had  bought  for  dinner.  On  the  high  wages 
Jake  was  earning — or  at  least  receiving — the  family  was 
eating  high. 

Little  Sister  told  her  brother  Sam,  "It's  a  shame  to  waste 
good  meat  on  his  old  black  lamp."  And  Sam's  regret  was, 
"I  wisht  I'd  'a'  gave  it  to  um." 

Little  Sister  knew  better  than  to  let  her  father  hear  any 
of  this,  but  it  was  only  another  cruel  evidence  that  great 
lovers  of  the  public  welfare  are  apt  to  be  harshly  regarded 
at  home.  It  is  too  much  to  expect  that  one  who  tenderly 
considers  mankind  in  the  mass  should  have  time  to  be  kind 
to  them  in  particular. 

Jake  was  not  even  appreciated  by  Mamise,  whom  he  did 
appreciate.  Every  time  he  praised  her  looks  or  her  swell 
clothes  she  acted  as  if  he  made  her  mad. 

To-night  when  he  found  her  at  the  house  her  first  gush  of 
anxiety  for  him  was  followed  by  a  remark  of  singular  heart- 
lessness : 

"But,  oh,  did  you  hear  of  the  destruction  of  the  Clara?" 

"Yes,  I  heard  of  the  destruction  of  the  Clara,"  he  echoed, 
with  a  sneer.  "If  I  had  my  way  the  whole  rotten  fleet 
would  follow  her  to  the  bottom  of  the  ocean!" 

"Why,  Jake!"  was  Abbie's  best. 

Jake  went  on:  "And  it  will,  too,  or  I'm  a  liar.  The  Ger 
mans  will  get  them  boats  as  fast  as  they  build  'em."  He 
laughed.  "I  tell  you  them  Kaiser-boys  just  eats  ships." 

"But  how  were  they  able  to  destroy  the  Clara?"  Mamise 
demanded. 

"Easiest  thing  you  know.  When  she  laid  up  at  Norfolk 
they  just  put  a  bomb  into  her." 

"But  how  did  they  know  she  was  going  to  Norfolk  to  load?" 

"Oh,  we — they  have  ways." 

The  little  slip  from  "we"  to  "they"  caught  Mamise's  ear. 
Her  first  intuition  of  its  meaning  was  right,  and  out  of  her 
amazement  the  first  words  that  leaped  were: 

"Poor  Abbie!" 

Thought,  like  lightning,  breaks  through  the  air  in  a  quick 
slash  from  cloud  to  ground.  Mamise's  whole  thought  was 


THE    CUP   OF    FURY  215 

from  zig  to  zag  in  some  such  procedure  as  this,  but  infinitely 
swift. 

"We — they?  That  means  that  Jake  considers  himself  a 
part  of  the  German  organization  for  destruction,  the  will 
to  ruin.  That  means  that  Jake  must  have  been  involved  in 
the  wreck  of  the  Clara.  That  means  that  he  deliberately  con 
nived  at  a  crime  against  his  country.  That  means  that  he  is 
a  traitor  as  well  as  a  murderer.  That  means  that  my  sister 
is  the  wife  of  a  fiend.  Poor  Abbie!" 

This  thought  stunned  and  blinded  Mamise  a  long  moment. 
She  heard  Jake  grumbling: 

"What  ya  mean — 'poor  Abbie!'?" 

Mamise  was  afraid  to  say.  She  cast  one  glance  at  Jake, 
and  the  lightning  of  understanding  struck  him.  He  realized 
what  she  was  thinking — or  at  least  he  suspected  it,  because 
he  was  thinking  of  his  own  past.  He  was  realizing  that  he 
had  met  Nicky  Easton  through  Mamise,  though  Mamise 
did  not  know  this — that  is,  he  hoped  she  did  not.  And  yet 
perhaps  she  did. 

And  now  Mamise  and  Jake  were  mutually  afraid  of  each 
other.  Abbie  was  altogether  in  the  dark,  and  a  little  jealous 
of  Mamise  and  her  peculiar  secrets,  but  her  general  mood  was 
one  of  stolid  thoughtlessness. 

Jake,  suspecting  Mamise's  suspicion  of  him,  was  moved  to 
justify  himself  by  one  of  his  tirades  against  society  in  general. 
Abbie,  who  had  about  as  much  confidence  in  the  world  as  an 
old  rabbit  in  a  doggy  country,  had  heard  Jake  thunder  so 
often  that  his  denunciations  had  become  as  vaguely  lulling 
as  a  continual  surf.  Generalizations  meant  nothing  to  her 
bovine  soul.  She  was  thinking  of  something  else,  usually, 
throughout  all  the  fiery  Jakiads.  While  he  indicted  whole 
nations  and  denounced  all  success  as  a  crime  against  unsuccess 
she  was  hunting  through  her  work-basket  for  a  good  thread 
to  patch  Sam's  pants  with. 

Abbie  was  unmoved,  but  Mamise  was  appalled.  It  was 
her  first  encounter  with  the  abysmal  hatred  of  which  some  of 
these  loud  lovers  of  mankind  are  capable.  Jake's  theories 
had  been  merely  absurd  or  annoying  before,  but  now  they 
grew  monstrous,  for  they  seemed  to  be  confirmed  by  an  actual 
crime. 

Mamise  felt  that  she  must  escape  from  the  presence  of 


216  THE    CUP   OF    FURY 

Jake  or  attack  him.  She  despised  him  too  well  to  argue  with 
him,  and  she  rose  to  go. 

Abbie  pleaded  with  her  in  vain  to  stay  to  supper.  She 
would  not  be  persuaded.  She  walked  to  her  own  bungalow 
and  cooked  herself  a  little  meal  of  her  own.  She  felt  stained 
once  more  with  vicarious  guilt,  and  wondered  what  she  had 
done  so  to  be  pursued  and  lassoed  by  the  crimes  of  others. 

She  remembered  that  she  had  lost  her  chance  to  clear  herself 
of  Sir  Joseph  Webling's  guilt  by  keeping  his  secret.  If  she 
had  gone  to  the  British  authorities  with  her  first  suspicion  of 
Sir  Joseph  and  Nicky  Easton  she  would  have  escaped  from 
sharing  their  guilt.  She  would  have  been  branded  as  an 
informer,  but  only  by  the  conspirators;  and  Sir  Joseph  him 
self  and  Lady  Webling  might  have  been  saved  from  self- 
destruction. 

Now  she  was  in  the  same  situation  almost  exactly.  Again 
she  had  only  suspicion  for  her  guide.  But  in  England  she 
had  been  a  foreigner  and  Sir  Joseph  was  her  benefactor.  Here 
she  was  in  her  own  country,  and  she  owed  nothing  to  Jake 
Nuddle,  who  was  a  low  brute,  as  ruthless  to  his  wife  as  to  his 
flag. 

It  came  to  Mamise  with  a  sharp  suddenness  that  her  one 
clear  duty  was  to  tell  Davidge  what  she  knew  about  Jake. 
It  was  not  a  pretty  duty,  but  it  was  a  definite.  She  resolved 
that  the  first  thing  she  did  in  the  morning  would  be  to  go  to 
Davidge  with  what  facts  she  had.  The  resolution  brought 
her  peace,  and  she  sat  down  to  her  meager  supper  with  a 
sense  of  pleasant  righteousness. 

Mamise  felt  so  redeemed  that  she  took  up  a  novel,  lighted 
a  cigarette,  and  sat  down  by  her  lamp  to  pass  a  well-earned 
evening  of  spinsterial  respectability.  Then  the  door  opened 
and  Abbie  walked  in.  Abbie  did  not  think  it  sisterly  to 
knock.  She  paused  to  register  her  formal  protest  against 
Mamise's  wicked  addiction  to  tobacco. 

"I  must  say,  Mamise,  I  do  wisht  you'd  break  yourself  of 
that  horbul  habbut." 

Mamise  laughed  tolerantly.  "You  were  cooking  cabbage 
when  I  was  at  your  house.  Why  can't  I  cook  this  vegetable?" 

"But  I  wa'n't  cooking  the  cabbage  in  my  face." 

"You  were  cooking  it  in  mine.  But  let's  not  argue  about 
botany  or  ethics." 


THE    CUP   OF    FURY  217 

Abbie  was  not  aware  of  mentioning  either  of  those  things, 
but  she  had  other  matters  to  discuss.  She  dropped  into  a 
chair,  sighing: 

"Jake's  went  out  to  telephone,  and  I  thought  I'd  just 
run  over  for  a  few  words.  You  see,  I — " 

"Where  was  Jake  telephoning?" 

"I  d'know.  He's  always  long-distancin'  somebody.  But 
what  I  come  for — " 

"Doesn't  it  ever  occur  to  you  to  wonder?" 

"Long  as  it  ain't  some  woman — or  if  it  is,  as  long  as  it's 
long  distance — why  should  I  worry  my  head  about  it?  The 
thing  I  wanted  to  speak  of  is — " 

"Didn't  it  rather  make  your  blood  run  cold  to  hear  Jake 
speak  as  he  did  of  the  lost  ship?" 

"Oh,  I'm  so  used  to  his  rantin'  it  goes  in  one  ear  and  out 
the  other." 

"You'd  better  keep  a  little  of  it  in  your  brain.  I'm  worried 
about  your  husband,  even  if  you're  not,  Abbie  dear." 

"What  call  you  got  to  worry?" 

"I  have  a  ghastly  feeling  that  my  brother-in-law  is  mixed 
up  in  the  sinking  of  the  Clara," 

"Don't  be  foolish!" 

"I'm  trying  not  to  be.  But  do  you  remember  the  night 
I  told  you  both  that  the  Clara  was  going  to  Norfolk  to  take 
on  her  cargo?  Well,  he  went  out  to  get  cigars,  though  he  had 
a  lot,  and  he  let  it  slip  that  he  had  been  talking  on  the  long 
distance  telephone.  When  the  Clara  is  sunk,  he  is  not  sur 
prised.  He  says,  'We — they  have  ways.'  He  prophesies  the 
sinking  of  all  the  ships  Mr.  Davidge — " 

Abbie  seized  this  name  as  a  weapon  of  self-defense  and 
mate-defense. 

"Oh,  you're  speakin'  for  Mr.  Davidge  now." 

"Perhaps.  He's  my  employer,  and  Jake's,  too.  I  feel 
under  some  obligations  to  him,  even  though  Jake  doesn't. 
I  feel  some  obligations  to  the  United  States,  and  Jake  doesn't. 
I  distrust  and  abhor  Germany,  and  Jake  likes  her  as  well  as 
he  does  us.  The  background  is  perfect.  When  such  crimes 
are  being  done  as  Germany  keeps  doing,  condoning  them  is  as 
bad  as  committing  them." 

"Big  words!"  sniffed  Abbie.  "Can't  you  talk  United 
States?" 


2i8  THE    CUP   OF    FURY 

"All  right,  my  dear.  I  say  that  since  Jake  is  glad  the 
Clara  was  sunk  and  hopes  that  more  ships  will  be  sunk,  he 
is  as  bad  as  the  men  that  sank  her.  And  what's  more,  I 
have  made  up  my  mind  that  Jake  helped  to  sink  her,  and 
that  he  works  in  this  yard  simply  for  a  chance  to  sink  more 
ships.  Do  you  get  those  words  of  one  syllable?" 

"No,"  said  Abbie.  Ideas  of  one  syllable  are  as  hard  to 
grasp  as  words  of  many.  "I  don't  know  what  you're 
drivin'  at  a  tall." 

"Poor  Abbie!"  sighed  Mamise.  "Dream  on,  if  you  want 
to.  But  I'm  going  to  tell  Mr.  Davidge  to  keep  a  watch  on 
Jake.  I'm  going  to  warn  him  that  Jake  is  probably  mixed 
up  in  the  sinking  of  that  beautiful  ship  he  named  after  his 
mother." 

Even  Abbie  could  not  miss  the  frightful  meaning  of  this. 
She  was  one  of  those  who  never  trust  experience,  one  of  those 
who  think  that,  in  spite  of  all  the  horrible  facts  of  the  past, 
horrible  things  are  impossible  in  the  future.  Higher  types  of 
the  same  mind  had  gone  about  saying  that  war  was  impossible, 
later  insisting  that  it  was  impossible  that  the  United  States 
should  be  dragged  into  this  war  because  it  was  so  horrible, 
and  next  averring  that  since  this  war  was  so  horrible  there 
could  never  be  another. 

Even  Abbie  could  imagine  what  would  happen  if  Mamise 
denounced  Jake  as  an  accomplice  in  the  sinking  of  the  Clara. 
It  would  be  so  terrible  that  it  must  be  impossible.  The  proof 
that  Jake  was  innocent  was  the  thought  of  what  would  happen 
to  him  and  to  her  and  their  children  if  he  were  found  guilty. 
She  summed  it  all  up  in  a  phrase: 

"Mamise,  you're  plumb  crazy!" 

"I  hope  so,  but  I'm  also  crazy  enough  to  put  Mr.  Davidge 
on  his  guard." 

"And  have  him  fire  Jake,  or  get  him  arrested?" 

"Perhaps." 

"Ain't  you  got  any  sense  of  decency  or  dooty  a  tall?" 

"I'm  trying  to  find  out." 

"Well,  I  always  knew  a  woman  who'd  smoke  cigarettes 
would  do  anything." 

"I'll  do  this." 

"O"  course  you  won't;  but  if  you  did,  I'd — why,  I'd — why, 
I  just  don't  know  what  I'd  do." 


THE    CUP   OF    FURY  219 

"Would  you  give  up  Jake?" 

"Give  up  Jake?     Divorce  him  or   something?" 

Mamise  nodded. 

Abbie  gasped:  "Why,  you're  positively  immor'l!  Posi- 
twe-ly\  He's  the  father  of  my  childern!  I'll  stick  to  Jake 
through  thick  and  thin." 

"Through  treason  and  murder,  too?  You  were  an  Amer 
ican,  you  know,  before  you  ever  met  him.  And  I  was  an 
American  before  he  became  my  brother-in-law.  And  I  don't 
intend  to  let  him  make  me  a  partner  in  his  guilt  just  because 
he  made  you  give  him  a  few  children." 

"I  won't  listen  to  another  word,"  cried  Abbie.  "You're 
too  indecent  to  talk  to."  And  she  slammed  the  door  after  her. 

"Poor  Abbie!"  said  Mamise,  and  closed  her  book,  rubbed 
the  light  out  of  her  cigarette,  and  went  to  bed. 

But  not  to  sleep.  Abbie  had  not  argued  well,  but  some 
times  that  is  best  for  the  arguments,  for  then  the  judge  be 
comes  their  attorney.  Mamise  tossed  on  a  grid  of  perplexities. 
Neither  her  mind  nor  her  body  could  find  comfort. 

She  rose  early  to  escape  her  thoughts.  It  was  a  cold,  raw 
morning,  and  Abbie  came  dashing  through  the  drizzle  with 
her  shawl  over  her  head  and  her  cheeks  besprent  with  tears 
and  rain.  She  flung  herself  on  Mamise  and  sobbed: 

"I  ain't  slep'  a  wink  all  night.  I  been  thinkin'  of  Jake  and 
the  childern.  I  was  mad  at  you  last  night,  but  I'm  sorry 
for  what  I  said.  You're  my  own  sister — all  I  got  in  the  world 
besides  the  three  childern.  And  I'm  all  you  got,  and  I 
know  it  ain't  in  you  to  go  and  send  the  father  o'  my  childern 
to  jail  and  ruin  my  life.  I've  had  a  hard  life,  and  so've 
you,  Mamise  honey,  but  we  got  to  be  friends  and  love  one 
another,  for  we're  all  that's  left  of  our  fambly,  and  it  couldn't 
be  that  one  sister  would  drive  the  other  to  distraction  and 
drag  the  family  name  in  the  mud.  It  couldn't  be,  could  it, 
Mamise?  Tell  me  you  was  only  teasin'  me!  I  didn't  mean 
what  I  said  last  night  about  you  bein'  indecent,  and  you 
didn't  mean  what  you  said  about  Jake,  did  you,  Mamise? 
Say  you  didn't,  or  I'll  just  die  right  here." 

She  had  left  the  door  open,  and  a  gust  of  windy  rain  came 
lashing  in.  The  world  outside  was  cold  and  wet,  and  Abbie 
was  warm  and  afraid  and  irresistibly  pitiful. 

Mamise  could  only  hug  and  kiss  her  and  say: 


220  THECUPOFFURY 

"I'll  see!    I'll  see!" 

When  people  do  not  know  what  their  chief  mysteries, 
themselves,  will  do  they  say,  "I'll  see." 

Mamise  thought  of  Davidge,  and  she  could  not  promise 
to  leave  him  in  ignorance  of  the  menace  imminent  above 
him.  But  when  at  last  she  tore  herself  from  Abbie's  clutching 
hands  and  hurried  away  to  the  office  she  looked  back  and  saw 
Abbie  out  in  the  rain,  staring  after  her  in  terror  and  shaking 
her  head  helplessly.  She  could  not  promise  herself  that  she 
would  tell  Davidge. 


CHAPTER  VII 

SHE  reached  the  office  late  in  spite  of  her  early  start. 
Davidge  had  gone.  He  had  gone  to  Pittsburgh  to  try 
to  plead  for  more  steel  for  more  ships. 

The  head  clerk  told  her  this.  He  was  in  an  ugly  mood, 
sarcastic  about  Mamise's  tardiness,  and  bitter  with  the 
knowledge  that  all  the  work  of  building  another  Clara  had 
to  be  carried  through  with  its  endless  detail  and  the  chance 
of  the  same  futility.  He  was  as  sick  about  it  as  a  Carlyle 
who  must  rewrite  a  burned-up  history,  an  Audubon  who 
must  repaint  all  his  pictures. 

Davidge  had  left  no  good-by  for  Mamise.  This  hurt  her. 
She  wished  that  she  had  stopped  to  tell  him  good  night  the 
afternoon  before. 

In  his  prolonged  absence  Mamise  wondered  if  he  were  really 
in  Pittsburgh  or  in  Washington  with  Lady  Clifton-Wyatt. 
She  experienced  the  first  luxury  of  jealousy;  it  was  aggravated 
by  alarm.  She  was  left  alone,  a  prey  to  the  appeals  of  Abbie, 
who  could  not  persuade  her  to  promise  silence. 

But  the  next  night  Jake  was  gone.  Abbie  explained  that 
he  had  been  called  out  of  town  to  a  meeting  of  a  committee 
of  his  benevolent  insurance  order.  Mamise  wondered  and 
surmised. 

Jake  went  to  meet  Nicky  Easton  and  claim  his  pay  for  his 
share  in  the  elimination  of  the  Clara.  Nicky  paid  him  so 
handsomely  that  Jake  lost  his  head  and  imagined  himself 
already  a  millionaire.  Strangely,  he  did  not  at  once  set 
about  dividing  his  wealth  among  his  beloved  "  protelariat. " 
He  made  a  royal  progress  from  saloon  to  saloon,  growing  more 
and  more  haughty,  and  pounding  on  successive  bars  with  a 
vigor  that  increased  as  his  articulation  effervesced.  His  secret 
would  probably  have  bubbled  out  of  him  if  he  had  not  been  so 
offensive  that  he  was  bounced  out  of  every  barroom  before  he 
had  time  to  get  to  the  explanation  of  his  wealth.  In  one 


222  THE  CUP  OF  FURY 

"poor  man's  club"  he  fell  asleep  and  rolled  off  his  chair  to  a 
comfortable  berth  among  the  spittoons. 

Next  morning  Jake  woke  up  with  his  head  swollen  and  his 
purse  vanished.  He  sought  out  Nicky  and  demanded  another 
fee.  Nicky  laughed  at  his  claim;  but  Jake  grew  threatening, 
and  Nicky  was  frightened  into  offering  him  a  chance  to  win 
another  fortune  by  sinking  another  ship.  He  staked  Jake  to 
the  fare  for  his  return  and  promised  to  motor  down  some  dark 
night  and  confer  with  him.  Jake  rolled  home  in  state. 

On  the  same  train  went  a  much  interested  sleuth  who 
detached  himself  from  the  entourage  of  Nicky  and  picked  up 
Jake. 

Jake  had  attracted  some  attention  when  he  first  met 
Nicky  in  Washington,  but  the  sadly  overworked  Department 
of  Justice  could  not  provide  a  squad  of  escorts  for  every  Ger 
man  or  pro-German  suspect.  Before  the  war  was  over  the 
secret  army  under  Mr.  Bielaski  reached  a  total  of  two  hundred 
and  fifty  thousand,  but  the  number  of  suspects  reached  into 
the  millions.  From  Nicky  Easton  alone  a  dozen  activities 
radiated;  and  studying  him  and  his  communicants  was  a 
slow  and  complex  task. 

Mr.  Larrey  decided  that  the  best  way  to  get  a  line  on  Jake 
would  be  to  take  a  job  alongside  him  and  "watch  his  work." 
It  was  the  easiest  thing  in  the  world  to  get  a  job  at  Davidge's 
shipyard ;  and  it  was  another  of  the  easiest  things  in  the  world 
to  meet  Jake,  for  Jake  was  eager  to  meet  workmen,  particu 
larly  workmen  like  Larrey,  who  would  listen  to  reason,  and 
take  an  interest  in  the  gentle  art  of  slowing  up  production. 
Larrey  was  all  for  sabotage. 

One  evening  Jake  invited  him  to  his  house  for  further 
development.  On  that  evening  Mamise  dropped  in.  She 
did  not  recognize  Larrey,  but  he  remembered  her  perfectly. 

He  could  hardly  believe  his  camera  eyes  at  first  when  he 
saw  the  great  Miss  Webling  enter  a  workman's  shanty  and 
accept  Jake  Nuddle's  introduction: 

"Larrey,  old  scout,  this  is  me  sister-in-law.  Mamise,  shake 
hands  with  me  pal  Larrey." 

Larrey  had  been  the  first  of  her  shadows  in  New  York,  but 
had  been  called  off  when  she  proved  unprofitable  and  before 
she  met  Easton.  And  now  he  found  her  at  work  in  a  ship 
yard  where  strange  things  were  happening!  He  was  all  afire 


THE  CUP  OF  FURY  223 

-T.— ' 

with  the  covey  of  spies  he  had  flushed.  His  first  impulse  was 
to  shoot  off  a  wire  in  code  to  announce  his  discovery.  Then 
he  decided  to  work  this  gold-mine  himself.  It  would  be 
pleasanter  to  cultivate  this  pretty  woman  than  Jake  Nuddle, 
and  she  would  probably  fall  for  him  like  a  thousand  of  brick. 
But  when  he  invited  himself  to  call  on  her  her  snub  fell  on 
him  like  a  thousand  of  brick.  She  would  not  let  him  see  her 
home,  and  he  was  furious  till  Jake  explained,  "She's  sweet 
on  the  boss." 

Larrey  decided  that  he  had  better  call  on  Davidge  and  tip 
him  off  to  the  past  of  his  stenographer  and  get  him  to  place 
her  under  observation. 

The  next  day  Davidge  came  back  from  his  protracted 
journey.  He  had  fought  a  winning  battle  for  an  allotment 
of  steel.  He  was  boyish  with  the  renewal  of  battle  ardor, 
and  boyish  in  his  greeting  of  Mamise.  He  made  no  bones 
of  greeting  her  before  all  the  clerks  with  a  horribly  embarrass 
ing  enthusiasm: 

"Lord!   but  I've  been  homesick  to  see  you!" 

Miss  Gabus  was  disgusted.  Mamise  was  silly  with  con 
fusion. 

Those  people  who  are  always  afraid  of  new  customs  have 
dreaded  public  life  for  women  lest  it  should  destroy  modesty 
and  rob  them  of  the  protection  of  guardians,  duennas,  and 
chaperons.  But  the  world  seems  to  have  to  have  a  certain 
amount  of  decency  to  get  along  on,  at  all,  and  provides  for  it 
among  humans  about  as  well  as  it  provides  for  the  protection 
of  other  plants  and  animals,  letting  many  suffer  and  perish 
and  some  prosper. 

The  anxious  conservatives  who  are  always  risking  their  own 
souls  in  spasms  of  anxiety  over  other  people's  souls  would 
have  given  up  Mamise  and  Davidge  for  lost,  since  she  lived 
alone  and  he  was  an  unattached  bachelor.  But  curiously 
enough,  their  characters  chaperoned  them,  their  jobs  and 
ambitions  excited  and  fatigued  them,  and  their  moods  of 
temptation  either  did  not  coincide  or  were  frustrated  by 
circumstances  and  crowds. 

Each  knew  well  what  it  was  to  suffer  an  onset  of  desperate 
emotion,  of  longing,  of  reckless,  helpless  adoration.  But  in 
office  hours  these  anguishes  were  as  futile  as  prayers  for  the 
15 


224  THE    CUP   OF    FURY 

moon.  Outside  of  office  hours  there  were  other  obstacles, 
embarrassments,  interferences. 

These  protections  and  ambitions  would  not  suffice  forever, 
any  more  than  a  mother's  vigilance,  maidenly  timidity,  con 
vent  walls  or  yashmaks  will  infallibly  prevail.  But  they  man 
aged  to  kill  a  good  deal  of  time — and  very  dolefully. 

Mamise  was  in  peculiar  peril  now.  She  was  beginning  to 
feel  very  sorry  for  herself,  and  even  sorrier  for  Davidge.  She 
remembered  how  cruelly  he  had  been  bludgeoned  by  the  news 
of  the  destruction  of  his  first  ship,  and  she  kept  remembering 
the  wild,  sweet  pangs  of  her  sympathy,  the  strange  ecstasy 
of  entering  into  the  grief  of  another.  She  remembered  how 
she  had  seized  his  shoulders  and  how  their  hands  had  wrestled 
together  in  a  common  anguish.  The  remembrance  of  that 
communion  came  back  to  her  in  flashes  of  feverish  demand 
for  a  renewal  of  union,  for  a  consummation  of  it,  indeed. 
She  was  human,  and  nothing  human  was  alien  to  her. 

Davidge  had  spoken  of  marriage — had  told  her  that  he  was 
a  candidate  for  her  husbandcy.  She  had  laughed  at  him  then, 
for  her  heart  had  been  full  of  the  new  wine  of  ambition. 
Like  other  wines,  it  had  its  morning  after  when  all  that  had 
been  so  alluring  looked  to  be  folly.  Her  own  loneliness  told 
her  that  Davidge  was  lonely,  and  that  two  lonelinesses  com 
bined  would  make  a  festival,  as  two  negatives  an  affirmative. 

When  Davidge  came  back  from  his  trip  the  joy  in  his  eyes 
at  sight  of  her  kindled  her  smoldering  to  flame.  She  would 
have  been  glad  if  he  had  snatched  her  to  his  breast  and  crushed 
her  there.  She  had  that  womanly  longing  to  be  crushed,  and 
he  the  man's  to  crush.  But  fate  provided  a  sentinel.  Miss 
Gabus  was  looking  on;  the  office  force  stood  by,  and  the  day's 
work  was  waiting  to  be  done. 

Davidge  went  to  his  desk  tremulous;  Mamise  to  her  type 
writer.  She  hammered  out  a  devil's  tattoo  on  it,  and  he 
devoured  estimates  and  commercial  correspondence,  while  an 
aromatic  haze  enveloped  them  both  as  truly  as  if  they  had 
been  faun  and  nymph  in  a  bosky  glade. 

Miss  Gabus  played  Mrs.  Grundy  all  morning  and  at  the  noon 
hour  made  a  noble  effort  to  rescue  Mamise  from  any  oppor 
tunity  to  cast  an  evil  spell  over  poor  Mr.  Davidge.  Women 
have  a  wonderful  pity  for  men  that  other  women  cultivate! 
Yet  all  that  Miss  Gabus  said  to  Miss  Webling  was: 


THE    CUP   OF    FURY  225 

"Goin1  to  lunch  now,  Mi'  Swebling?" 

And  all  that  Miss  Webling  said  was: 

"Not  just  yet — thank  you." 

Both  were  almost  swooning  with  the  tremendous  significance 
of  the  moment. 

Miss  Webling  felt  that  she  was  defying  all  the  powers  of 
espionage  and  convention  when  she  made  so  brave  as  to  linger 
while  Miss  Gabus  left  the  room  in  short  twitches,  with  the 
painful  reluctance  of  one  who  pulls  off  an  adhesive  plaster  by 
degrees.  When  at  last  she  was  really  off,  Miss  Webling  went 
to  Davidge's  door,  feeling  as  wicked  as  the  maid  in  Ophelia's 
song,  though  she  said  no  more  than : 

"Well,  did  you  have  a  successful  journey?" 

Davidge  whirled  in  his  chair. 

"Bully!     Sit  down,  won't  you?" 

He  thought  that  no  goddess  had  ever  done  so  divine  a  thing 
so  ambrosially  as  she  when  she  smiled  and  shook  her  incredibly 
exquisite  head.  He  rose  to  his  feet  in  awe  of  her.  His  rest 
less  hands,  afraid  to  lay  hold  of  their  quarry,  automatically 
extracted  his  watch  from  his  pocket  and  held  it  beneath  his 
eyes.  He  stared  at  it  without  recognizing  the  hour,  and 
stammered: 

"Will  you  lunch  with  me?" 

"No,  thank  you!" 

This  jolted  an  "Oh !"  out  of  him.     Then  he  came  back  with : 

"When  am  I  going  to  get  a  chance  to  talk  to  you?" 

"You  know  my  address." 

"Yes,  but — "  He  thought  of  that  horrible  evening  when 
he  had  marched  through  the  double  row  of  staring  cottages. 
But  he  was  determined.  "Going  to  be  home  this  evening?" 

"By  some  strange  accident — yes." 

"By  some  strange  accident,  I  might  drop  round." 

"Do." 

They  laughed  idiotically,  and  she  turned  and  glided  out. 

She  went  to  the  mess-hall  and  moved  about,  selecting  her 
dishes.  Pretending  not  to  see  that  Miss  Gabus  was  pre 
tending  not  to  see  her,  she  took  her  collation  to  another  table 
and  ate  with  the  relish  of  a  sense  of  secret  guilt — the  guilt 
of  a  young  woman  secretly  betrothed. 

Davidge  kept  away  from  the  office  most  of  the  afternoon 
because  Mamise  was  so  intolerably  sweet  and  so  tantalizingly 


226  THE    CUP    OF    FURY 

unapproachable.  He  made  a  pretext  of  inspecting  the  works. 
She  had  a  sugary  suspicion  of  his  motive,  and  munched  it  with 
strange  comfort. 

What  might  have  happened  if  Davidge  had  called  on  her 
in  her  then  mood  and  his  could  easily  be  guessed.  But  there 
are  usually  interventions.  The  chaperon  this  time  was  Mr. 
Larrey,  the  operative  of  the  Department  of  Justice.  He  also 
had  his  secret. 

He  arrived  at  Davidge's  home  just  as  Davidge  finished  the 
composition  of  his  third  lawn  tie  and  came  down-stairs  to  go. 
When  he  saw  Larrey  he  was  a  trifle  curt  with  his  visitor. 
Thinking  him  a  workman  and  probably  an  ambassador  from 
one  of  the  unions  on  the  usual  mission  of  such  ambassadors 
— more  pay,  less  hours,  or  the  discharge  of  some  unorganized 
laborer — Davidge  said : 

"Better  come  round  to  the  office  in  the  morning." 

"I  can't  come  to  your  office,"  said  Larrey. 

"Why  not?     It's  open  to  everybody." 

"Yeh,  but  I  can't  afford  to  be  seen  goin'  there." 

"Good  Lord!    Isn't  it  respectable  enough  for  you?" 

"Yeh,  but — well,  I  think  it's  my  duty  to  tip  you  off  to  a 
little  slick  work  that's  goin'  on  in  your  establishment." 

"Won't  it  keep  till  to-morrow  evening?" 

"Yeh — I  guess  so.     It's  only  one  of  your  stenographers." 

This  checked  Davidge.  By  a  quaint  coincidence  he  was 
about  to  call  on  one  of  his  stenographers.  Larrey  amended 
his  first  statement:  "Leastways,  I'll  say  she  calls  herself  a 
stenographer.  But  that's  only  her  little  camouflage.  She's 
not  on  the  level." 

Davidge  realized  that  the  stenographer  he  was  wooing  was 
not  on  the  level.  She  was  in  the  clouds.  But  his  curiosity 
was  piqued.  He  motioned  Larrey  to  a  chair  and  took  another. 

"Shoot,"  he  said. 

"Well,  it's  this  Miss  Webling.     Know  anything  about  her?" 

"Something,"  said  Davidge.  He  was  too  much  amused  to 
be  angry.  He  thought  that  Larrey  was  another  of  those 
amateur  detectives  who  flattered  Germany  by  crediting  her 
with  an  omnipresence  in  evil.  He  was  a  faithful  reader  of 
Ellis  Parker  Butler's  famous  sleuth,  and  he  grinned  at  Larrey. 
"Well,  Mr.  Philo  Gubb,  go  on.  Your  story  interests  me." 

Larrey  reddened.     He  spoke  earnestly,  explained  who  he 


THE    CUP    OF    FURY  227V 

was,  showed  his  credentials,  and  told  what  he  knew  of  Miss 
Webling.  He  added  what  he  imagined  Davidge  knew. 

Davidge  found  the  whole  thing  too  preposterous  to  be 
insolent.  His  chivalry  in  Mamise's  behalf  was  not  aroused, 
because  he  thought  that  the  incident  would  make  a  good 
story  to  tell  her.  He  drew  Larrey  out  by  affecting  amazed 
incredulity. 

Larrey  explained :  "She's  an  old  friend  of  ours.  We  got  the 
word  from  the  British  to  pick  the  lady  up  when  she  first 
landed  in  this  country.  She  was  too  slick  for  us,  I  guess, 
because  we  never  got  the  goods  on  her.  We  gave  her  up 
after  a  couple  of  weeks.  Then  her  trail  crossed  Nicky 
Easton's  once  more." 

"And  who  is  Nicky  Easton?" 

"He's  a  German  agent  she  knew  in  London — great  friend 
of  her  adopted  father's.  The  British  nabbed  him  once,  but 
he  split  on  the  gang,  and  they  let  him  off.  Whilst  I  was 
trailin'  him  I  ran  into  a  feller  named  Nuddle — he  come  up 
to  see  Easton.  I  followed  him  here,  and  lo  and  behold! 
Miss  Webling  turns  up,  too!  And  passin'  herself  off  for 
Nuddle's  sister-in-law!  Nuddle's  a  bad  actor,  but  she's 
worse.  And  she  pretends  to  be  a  poor  workin'-girl.  Cheese! 
You  should  have  seen  her  in  New  York  all  dolled  up!" 

Davidge  ignored  the  opportunity  to  say  that  he  had  had  the 
privilege  of  seeing  Miss  Webling  all  dolled  up.  He  knew  why 
Mamise  was  living  as  she  did.  It  was  a  combination  of  lark 
and  crusade.  He  nursed  Larrey's  story  along,  and  asked  with 
patient  amusement: 

"What's  your  theory  as  to  her  reason  for  playing  such  a 
game?" 

He  smiled  as  he  said  this,  but  sobered  abruptly  when 
Larrey  explained : 

"You  lost  a  ship  not  long  ago,  didn't  you?  You  got  other 
ships  on  the  ways,  ain't  you?  Well,  I  don't  need  to  tell  you 
it's  good  business  for  the  Huns  to  slow  up  or  blow  up  all  the 
ships  they  can.  Every  boat  they  stop  cuts  down  the  supplies 
of  the  Allies  just  so  much.  This  Miss  Webling's  adopted 
father  was  in  on  the  sinking  of  the  Lusitania,  and  this  girl 
was,  too,  probably.  She  carried  messages  between  old  Web 
ling  and  Easton,  and  walked  right  into  a  little  trap  the 
British  laid  for  her.  She  put  up  a  strong  fight,  and,  being  an 


228  THE    CUP   OF    FURY 

American,  was  let  go.  But  her  record  got  to  this  country 
before  she  did.  You  ask  me  what  she's  up  to.  Well,  what 
should  she  be  up  to  but  the  Kaiser's  work?  She's  no  stenog 
rapher,  and  she  wouldn't  be  here  playin*  tunes  on  a  type 
writer  unless  she  had  some  good  business  reason.  Well,  her 
business  is — she's  a  ship-wrecker." 

The  charge  was  ridiculous,  yet  there  were  confirmations  or 
seeming  confirmations  of  it.  The  mere  name  of  Nicky 
Easton  was  a  thorn  in  Davidge's  soul.  He  remembered  Easton 
in  London  at  Mamise's  elbow,  and  in  Washington  pursuing 
her  car  and  calling  her  "Mees  Vapelink." 

Davidge  promised  Larrey  that  he  would  look  into  the 
matter,  and  bade  him  good  night  with  mingled  respect  and 
fear. 

When  he  set  out  at  length  to  call  on  Mamise  he  was  griev 
ously  troubled  lest  he  had  lost  his  heart  to  a  clever  adventuress. 
He  despised  his  suspicions,  and  yet — somebody  had  destroyed 
his  ship.  He  remembered  how  shocked  she  had  been  by  the 
news.  Yet  what  else  could  the  worst  spy  do  but  pretend  to 
be  deeply  worried?  Davidge  had  never  liked  Jake  Nuddle, 
Mamise's  alleged  relationship  by  marriage  did  not  gain 
plausibility  on  reconsideration.  The  whim  to  live  in  a  work 
man's  cottage  was  even  less  convincing. 

Mr.  Larrey  had  spoiled  Davidge's  blissful  mood  and  his 
lover's  program  for  the  evening.  Davidge  moved  slowly 
toward  Mamise's  cottage,  not  as  a  suitor,  but  as  a  student. 

Larrey  shadowed  him  from  force  of  h?bit,  and  saw  him 
going  with  reluctant  feet,  pausing  now  and  then,  irresolute. 
Davidge  was  thinking  hard,  calling  himself  a  fool,  now  for 
trusting  Mamise  and  now  for  listening  to  Larrey.  To  suspect 
Mamise  was  to  be  a  traitor  to  his  love:  not  to  suspect  her 
was  to  be  a  traitor  to  his  common  sense  and  to  his  beloved 
career. 

And  the  Mamise  that  awaited  the  belated  Davidge  was 
also  in  a  state  of  tangled  wits.  She,  too,  had  dressed  with  a 
finikin  care,  as  Davidge  had,  neither  of  them  stopping  to 
think  how  quaint  a  custom  it  is  for  people  who  know  each 
other  well  and  see  each  other  in  plain  clothes  every  day  to 
get  themselves  up  with  meticulous  skill  in  the  evening  like 
Christmas  parcels  for  each  other's  examination.  Nature 
dresses  the  birds  in  the  mating  season.  Mankind  with  the 


THE    CUP   OF    FURY  229 

aid  of  the  dressmaker  and  the  haberdasher  plumes  up  at 
will. 

But  as  Caesar  had  his  Brutus,  Charles  I  his  Cromwell,  and 
Davidge  his  Larrey,  so  Mamise  had  her  sister  Abbie. 

Abbie  came  in  unexpectedly  and  regarded  Mamise's  costume 
with  no  illusions  except  her  own  cynical  ones: 

"What  you  all  diked  up  about?" 

Mamise  shrugged  her  eyebrows,  her  lips,  and  her  shoulders. 

Abbie  guessed.     "That  man  comir>'?" 

Mamise  repeated  her  previous  business. 

"Kind  of  low  neck,  don't  you  think?  And  your  arms 
nekked." 

Mamise  drew  over  her  arms  a  scarf  that  gave  them  color 
rather  than  concealment.  Abbie  scorned  the  subterfuge. 

"Do  you  think  it's  proper  to  dress  like  that  for  a  man  to 
come  callin'?" 

"I  did  think  so  till  you  spoke,"  snapped  Mamise  in  all  the 
bitterness  of  the  ancient  feud  between  loveliness  unashamed 
and  unlovely  shame. 

Abbie  felt  unwelcome.  "Well,  I  just  dropped  over  because 
Jake's  went  out  to  some  kind  of  meetin'." 

"With  whom?    Where?" 

"Oh,  some  of  the  workmen — a  lot  of  soreheads  lookin'  for 
more  wages." 

Mamise  was  indignant:  "The  soldiers  get  thirty  dollars 
a  month  on  a  twenty-four-hour,  seven-day  shift.  Jake  gets 
more  than  that  a  week  for  loafing  round  the  shop  about  seven 
hours  a  day.  How  on  earth  did  you  ever  tie  yourself  up  to 
such  a  rotten  bounder?" 

Abbie  longed  for  a  hot  retort,  but  was  merely  peevish: 

"Well,  I  ain't  seen  you  marryin'  anything  better.  I  guess 
I'll  go  home.  I  don't  seem  to  be  wanted  here." 

This  was  one  of  those  exact  truths  that  decent  people  must 
immediately  deny.  Mamise  put  her  arms  about  Abbie  and 
said: 

"Forgive  me,  dear — I'm  a  beast.  But  Jake  is  such  a — 
She  felt  Abbie  wriggling  ominously  and  changed  to:  "He's 
so  unworthy  of  you.  These  are  such  terrible  times,  and  the 
world  is  in  such  horrible  need  of  everybody's  help  and  es 
pecially  of  ships.  It  breaks  my  heart  to  see  anybody  wasting 
his  time  and  strength  interfering  with  the  builders  instead  of 


23o  THE    CUP   OF    FURY 

joining  them.  It's  like  interfering  with  the  soldiers.  It's  a 
kind  of  treason.  And  besides,  he  does  so  little  for  you  and 
the  children." 

This  last  Abbie  was  willing  to  admit.  She  shed  a  few  tears 
of  self-esteem,  but  she  simply  could  not  rise  to  the  heights  of 
suffering  for  anything  as  abstract  as  a  cause  or  a  nation  or  a 
world.  She  was  like  so  many  of  the  air-ships  the  United  States 
was  building  then:  she  could  not  be  induced  to  leave  the 
ground  or,  if  she  got  up,  to  glide  back  safely. 

She  tried  now  to  love  her  country,  but  she  hardly  rose  before 
she  fell. 

"Oh,  I  know  it's  tur'ble  what  folks  are  sufferin',  but — well, 
the  Lord's  will  be  done,  I  say." 

"And  I  say  it's  mainly  the  devil's  will  that's  being  done!" 
said  Mamise. 

This  terrified  Abbie.  "I  wisht  you'd  be  a  little  careful  of 
your  language,  Mamise.  Swearin'  and  cigarettes  both  is 
pretty  much  of  a  load  for  a  lady  to  git  by  with." 

"O  Lord!"  sighed  Mamise,  in  despair.  She  was  capable  of 
long,  high  flights,  but  she  could  not  carry  such  a  passenger. 

Abbie  continued:  "And  do  you  think  it's  right,  seein' 
men  here  all  by  yourself?" 

"I'm  not  seeing  men — but  a  man." 

"But  all  by  yourself." 

"I'm  not  all  by  myself  when  he's  here." 

"You'll  get  the  neighbors  talkin' — you'll  see!" 

"A  lot  I  care  for  their  talk!" 

"Why  don't  you  marry  him  and  settle  down  respectable 
and  have  childern  and — " 

"Why  don't  you  go  home  and  take  care  of  your  own?" 

"I  guess  I  better."     And  she  departed  forthwith. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

'"PHE  two  sisters  had  managed  to  fray  each  other's  nerves 
1  raw.  The  mere  fact  that  Abbie  advocated  marriage  and 
maternity  threw  Mamise  into  a  cantankerous  distaste  for  her 
own  dreams. 

Larrey  had  delayed  Davidge  long  enough  for  Mamise  to  be 
rid  of  Abbie,  but  the  influence  of  both  Larrey  and  Abbie  was 
manifest  in  the  strained  greetings  of  the  caller  and  the  callee. 
Instead  of  the  eagerness  to  rush  into  each  other's  arms  that 
both  had  felt  in  the  morning,  Davidge  entered  Mamise 's 
presence  with  one  thought  dominant:  "Is  she  really  a  spy? 
I  must  be  on  my  guard."  And  Mamise  was  thinking,  "If  he 
should  be  thinking  what  Abbie  thought,  how  odious!" 

Thus  once  more  their  moods  chaperoned  them.  Love  could 
not  attune  them.  She  sat;  he  sat.  When  their  glances  met 
they  parted  at  once. 

She  mistook  his  uncertainty  for  despondency.  She  as 
sumed  that  he  was  brooding  over  his  lost  ship.  Out  of  a 
long  silence  she  spoke: 

"I  wonder  if  the  world  will  ever  forget  and  forgive?" 

"Forget  and  forgive  who — whom,  for  what?" 

"Germany  for  all  she's  done  to  this  poor  world — Belgium, 
the  Lusitania,  the  Clara?" 

He  smiled  sadly.  "The  Clara  was  a  little  slow  tub  com 
pared  to  the  Lusitania,  bu£  she  meant  a  lot  to  me." 

"And  to  me.  So  did  the  Lusitania.  She  nearly  cost  me 
my  life." 

He  was  startled.     "You  didn't  plan  to  sail  on  her?" 

"No,  but —  She  paused.  She  had  not  meant  to  open 
this  subject. 

But  he  was  aching  to  hear  her  version  of  what  Larrey  had 
told. 

"How  do  you  mean — she  nearly  cost  you  your  life?" 


232  THE    CUP   OF    FURY 

"Oh,  that's  one  of  the  dark  chapters  of  my  past." 

"You  never  told  me  about  it." 

"I'd  rather  not." 

"Please!"  He  said  it  with  a  surprising  earnestness.  He 
had  a  sudden  hope  that  her  confession  might  be  an  absolving 
explanation. 

She  could  not  fathom  this  eagerness,  but  she  felt  a  desire 
to  release  that  old  secret.  She  began,  recklessly: 

"Well,  I  told  you  how  I  ran  away  from  home  and  went  on 
the  stage,  and  Sir  Joseph  Webling — " 

"You  told  me  that  much,  but  not  what  happened  before 
you  met  him." 

"No,  I  didn't  tell  you  that,  and  I'm  not  going  to  now,  but — 
well,  Sir  Joseph  was  like  a  father  to  me;  I  never  had  one  of 
my  own — to  know  and  remember.  Sir  Joseph  was  German 
born,  and  perhaps  the  ruthlessness  was  contagious,  for  he — 
well,  I  can't  tell  you." 

"Please!" 

"I  swore  not  to." 

"You  gave  your  oath  to  a  German?" 

"No,  to  an  English  officer  in  the  Secret  Service.  I'm  always 
forgetting  and  starting  to  tell." 

"Why  did  you  take  your  oath?" 

"I  traded  secrecy  for  freedom." 

"You  mean  you  turned  state's  evidence?" 

"Oh  no,  I  didn't  tell  on  them.  I  didn't  know  what  they 
were  up  to  when  they  used  me  for —  But  I'm  skidding  now. 
I  want  to  tell  you — terribly.  But  I  simply  must  not.  I 
made  an  awful  mistake  that  night  at  Mrs.  Prothero's  in 
pretending  to  be  ill." 

"You  only  pretended?" 

"Yes,  to  get  you  away.  You  see,  Lady  Clifton-Wyatt  got 
after  me,  accused  me  of  being  a  spy,  of  carrying  messages  that 
resulted  in  the  sinking  of  ships  and  the  killing  of  men.  She 
said  that  the  police  came  to  our  house,  and  Sir  Joseph  tried 
to  kill  one  of  them  and  killed  his  own  wife  and  then  was  shot 
by  an  officer  and  that  they  gave  out  the  story  that  Sir  Joseph 
and  Lady  Webling  died  of  ptomaine  poisoning.  She  said 
Nicky  Easton  was  shot  in  the  Tower.  Oh,  an  awful  story 
she  told,  and  I  was  afraid  she'd  tell  you,  so  I  spirited  you 
away  on  the  pretext  of  illness." 


THE    CUP   OF    FURY  233 

Davidge  was  astounded  at  this  confirmation  of  Larrey's 
story.  He  said: 

"But  it  wasn't  true  what  Lady  C.-W.  told?" 

"Most  of  it  was  false,  but  it  was  fiction  founded  on  fact, 
and  I  couldn't  explain  it  without  breaking  my  oath.  And 
now  I've  pretty  nearly  broken  it,  after  all.  I've  sprained  it 
badly." 

"Don't  you  want  to  go  on  and — finish  it  off?" 

"I  want  to — oh,  how  I  want  to!  but  I've  got  to  save  a  few 
shreds  of  respectability.  I  kidnapped  you  the  day  you  were 
going  to  tea  with  Lady  C.-W.  to  keep  you  from  her.  I  wish 
now  I'd  let  you  go.  Then  you'd  have  known  the  worst  of 
me — or  worse  than  the  worst." 

She  turned  a  harrowed  glance  his  way,  and  saw,  to  her 
bewilderment,  that  he  was  smiling  broadly.  Then  he  seized 
her  hands  and  felt  a  need  to  gather  her  home  to  his  arms. 

She  was  so  amazed  that  she  fell  back  to  stare  at  him. 
Studying  his  radiant  face,  she  somehow  guessed  that  he  had 
known  part  of  her  story  before  and  was  glad  to  hear  her 
confess  it,  but  her  intuition  missed  fire  when  she  guessed  at  the 
source  of  his  information. 

"You  have  been  talking  to  Lady  Clifton-Wyatt,  after  all!" 

"Not  since  I  saw  her  with  you." 

"Then  who  told  you?" 

He  laughed  now,  for  it  pleased  him  mightily  to  have  her 
read  his  heart  so  true. 

"The  main  thing  is  that  you  told  me.  And  now  once  more 
I  ask  you:  will  you  marry  me?" 

This  startled  her  indeed.  She  startled  him  no  less  by  her 
brusquerie : 

"Certainly  not." 

"And  why  not?" 

"I'll  marry  no  man  who  is  so  careless  whom  he  marries 
as  you  are." 


CHAPTER  IX 

HHHE  whimsical  solemnity  of  this  made  him  roar.  But  a 
1  man  does  not  love  a  woman  the  less  for  being  feminine, 
and  when  she  thwarts  him  by  a  womanliness  she  delights  him 
excruciatingly. 

But  Mamise  was  in  earnest.  She  believed  in  one  emotion 
at  a  time.  It  offended  her  to  have  Davidge  suggest  that  the 
funeral  baked  meats  of  her  tragedy  should  coldly  furnish 
forth  a  wedding  breakfast.  She  wanted  to  revel  awhile 
in  her  elegiac  humor  and  pay  full  honor  to  her  sorrow,  full 
penalty  for  her  guilt.  She  put  aside  his  amorous  impatience 
and  returned  to  her  theme. 

"Well,  after  all  the  evil  I  have  done,  I  wanted  to  make 
some  atonement.  I  was  involved  in  the  sinking  of  I  don't 
know  how  many  ships,  and  I  wanted  to  take  some  part  in 
building  others.  So  when  I  met  you  and  you  told  me  that 
women  could  build  ships,  too,  you  wakened  a  great  hope  in 
me,  and  an  ambition.  I  wanted  to  get  out  in  the  yards  and 
swing  a  sledge  or  drive  a  riveting-gun." 

"With  those  hands?"     He  laughed  and  reached  for  them. 

She  put  them  out  of  sight  back  of  her  as  one  removes 
dangerous  toys  from  the  clutch  of  a  child,  and  went  on: 

"But  you  wouldn't  let  me.  So  I  took  up  the  next  best 
thing,  office  work.  I  studied  that  hateful  stenography  and 
learned  to  play  a  typewriter." 

"It  keeps  you  nearer  to  me." 

"But  I  don't  want  to  be  near  you.  I  want  to  build  ships. 
Please  let  me  go  out  in  the  yard.  Please  give  me  a  real  job." 

He  could  not  keep  from  laughing  at  her,  at  such  delicacy 
pleading  for  such  toil.  His  amusement  humiliated  her  and 
baffled  her  so  that  at  length  she  said: 

"Please  go  on  home.  It's  getting  late,  and  I  don't  like 
you  at  all." 

"I  know  you  don't  like  me,  but  couldn't  you  love  me?" 


THE    CUP   OF    FURY  235 

"That's  more  impossible  than  liking  you,  since  you  won't 
let  me  have  my  only  wish." 

"It's  too  brutal,  I  tell  you.  And  it's  getting  too  cold. 
It  would  simply  ruin  your  perfect  skin.  I  don't  want  to 
marry  a  longshoreman,  thank  you." 

" Then  I'll  thank  you  to  go  on  home.  I'm  tired  out.  I've 
got  to  get  up  in  the  morning  at  the  screech  of  dawn  and  take 
up  your  ghastly  drudgery  again." 

"If  you'll  marry  me  you  won't  have  to  work  at  all." 

"But  work  is  the  one  thing  I  want.  So  if  you'll  kindly  take 
yourself  off  I'll  be  much  obliged.  You've  no  business  here, 
anyway,  and  it's  getting  so  late  that  you'll  have  all  the 
neighbors  talking." 

"A  lot  I  care!" 

"Well,  I  care  a  lot,"  she  said,  blandly  belying  her  words 
to  Abbie.  "I've  got  to  live  among  them." 

It  was  a  miserable  ending  to  an  evening  of  such  promise. 
He  felt  as  sheepish  as  a  cub  turned  out  of  his  best  girl's  house 
by  a  sleepy  parent,  but  he  had  no  choice.  He  rose  drearily, 
fought  his  way  into  his  overcoat,  and  growled: 

"Good  night!" 

She  sighed  "Good  night!"  and  wished  that  she  were  not 
so  cantankerous.  The  closing  of  the  door  shook  her  whole 
frame,  and  she  made  a  step  forward  to  call  him  back,  but  sank 
into  a  chair  instead,  worn  out  with  the  general  unsatisfac- 
toriness  of  life,  the  complicated  mathematical  problem  that 
never  comes  out  even.  Marriage  is  a  circle  that  cannot  be 
quite  squared. 

She  sat  droopily  in  her  chair  for  a  long  while,  pondering 
mankind  and  womankind  and  their  mutual  dependence  and 
incompatibility.  It  would  be  nice  to  be  married  if  one  could 
stay  single  at  the  same  time.  But  it  was  hopelessly  impossible 
to  eat  your  cake  and  have  it,  too. 

Abbie,  watching  from  her  window  and  not  knowing  that 
Davidge  had  gone,  imagined  all  sorts  of  things  and  wished  that 
her  wild  sister  would  marry  and  settle  down.  And  yet  she 
wished  that  she  herself  had  stayed  single,  for  the  children 
were  a  torment,  and  of  her  husband  she  could  only  say  that 
she  did  not  know  whether  he  bothered  her  the  more  when 
he  was  away  or  when  he  was  at  home. 

When  Davidge  left  Mamise  he  looked  back  at  the  lonely 


236  THE    CUP   OF    FURY 

cottage  she  stubbornly  and  miserably  occupied  and  longed 
to  hale  her  from  it  into  a  palace.  As  he  walked  home  his 
heart  warmed  to  all  the  little  cottages,  most  of  them  dark  and 
cheerless,  and  he  longed  to  change  all  these  to  palaces,  too.  He 
felt  sorry  for  the  poor,  tired  people  that  lived  so  humbly  there 
and  slept  now  but  to  rise  in  the  morning  to  begin  moiling  again. 

Sometimes  from  his  office  window  he  surveyed  the  long  lines 
at  the  pay-windows  and  felt  proud  that  he  could  pour  so 
much  treasure  into  the  hands  of  the  poor.  If  he  had  not 
schemed  and  borrowed  and  organized  they  would  not  have 
had  their  wages  at  all. 

But  now  he  wished  that  there  might  be  no  poor  and  no 
wages,  but  everybody  palaced  and  living  on  money  from  home. 
That  seemed  to  be  the  idea,  too,  of  his  more  discontented 
working-men,  but  he  could  not  imagine  how  everybody  could 
have  a  palace  and  everybody  live  at  ease.  Who  was  to  build 
the  palaces?  Who  was  to  cut  the  marble  from  the  mountains 
and  haul  it,  and  who  to  dig  the  foundations  and  blast  the 
steel  and  fasten  the  girders  together?  It  was  easy  for  the 
dreamers  and  the  literary  loafers  and  the  irresponsible  car 
toonists  to  denounce  the  capitalists  and  draw  pictures  of  them 
as  obese  swine  wallowing  in  bags  of  gold  while  emaciated  chil 
dren  put  out  their  lean  hands  in  vain.  But  cartoons  were  not 
construction,  and  the  men  who  would  revolutionize  the  world 
could  not,  as  a  rule,  keep  their  own  books  straight. 

Material  riches  were  everywhere,  provided  one  had  the 
mental  riches  to  go  out  and  get  them.  Davidge  had  been  as 
poor  as  the  poorest  man  at  his  works,  but  he  had  sold  muscle 
for  money  and  brains  for  money.  He  had  dreamed  and 
schemed  and  drawn  up  tremendous  plans  while  they  took  their 
pay  and  went  home  to  their  evenings  of  repose  in  the  bosoms 
of  their  families  or  the  barrooms  of  idleness. 

Still  there  was  no  convincing  them  of  the  realization  that 
they  could  not  get  capital  by  slandering  capitalists,  or  ease 
by  ease,  but  only  by  sweat.  And  so  everybody  was  saying 
that  as  soon  as  this  great  war  was  over  a  greater  war  was 
coming  upon  the  world.  He  wondered  what  could  be  done 
to  stay  that  universal  fury  from  destroying  utterly  all  that 
the  German  horror  might  spare. 

Thinking  of  such  things,  he  forgot,  for  the  nonce,  the  pangs 
of  love. 


BOOK    V 

IN    WASHINGTON 


TJow  quaint  a  custom  it  is  for  people  who  know  each 
•*••*•  other  well  and  see  each  other  in  plain  clothes  every 
day  to  get  themselves  up  with  meticulous  skill  in  the  eve 
ning  like  Christmas  parcels  for  each  other' s  examination. 


CHAPTER  I 

threat  of  winter  was  terrifying  the  long-suffering 
1  world.  People  thought  of  the  gales  that  would  harass 
the  poor  souls  in  the  clammy  trenches,  the  icy  winds  that 
would  flutter  the  tents  of  the  men  in  camps,  the  sleety  storms 
that  would  lash  the  workers  on  the  docks  and  on  the  decks 
of  ships  and  in  the  shipyards;  the  final  relentless  persecution 
of  the  refugees,  crowded  upon  the  towns  that  had  not  enough 
for  themselves. 

To  be  cold  when  one  is  despondent  is  a  fearsome  thing. 
Mamise  woke  in  the  chill  little  cottage  and  had  to  leap  from 
her  snug  bed  to  a  cold  bathroom,  come  out  chattering  to  a  cold 
kitchen.  Just  as  her  house  grew  a  little  warm,  she  had  to 
leave  it  for  a  long,  windy  walk  to  an  office  not  half  warm 
enough. 

The  air  was  full  of  orphan  leaves,  and  Cossack  whirlwinds 
stampeded  them  down  the  roads  as  ruthlessly  as  Uhlans 
herding  Belgian  fugitives  along.  The  dour  autumn  seemed 
to  wrench  hopes  from  the  heart  like  shriveled  leaves,  and  to 
fill  the  air  with  swirling  discouragements.  The  men  at  work 
about  the  ships  were  numb  and  often  stopped  to  blow  upon 
their  aching  fingers.  The  red-hot  rivets  went  in  showers  that 
threatened  to  blister,  but  gave  no  warmth. 

The  ambitions  of  Mamise  congealed  along  with  the  other 
stirring  things.  She  was  sorely  tempted  to  give  up  the  un 
womanly  battle  and  accept  Davidge's  offer  of  a  wedding- 
ring.  She  had,  of  course,  her  Webling  inheritance  to  fall 
back  upon,  but  she  had  come  to  hate  it  so  as  tainted  money 
that  she  would  not  touch  it  or  its  interest.  She  put  it  all 
into  Liberty  Bonds  and  gave  a  good  many  of  those  to  various 
charities.  Not  the  least  of  her  delights  in  her  new  career  had 
been  her  emancipation  from  slavery  to  the  money  Mr.  Ver- 
rinder  had  spoken  of  as  her  wages  for  aiding  Sir  Joseph 
Webling. 
10 


24o  THE    CUP    OF    FURY 

A  marriage  with  Davidge  was  an  altogether  different  slavery, 
a  thoroughly  patriotic  livelihood.  It  would  permit  her  to  have 
servants  to  wait  on  her  and  build  her  fires.  She  would  go 
out  only  when  she  wished,  and  sleep  late  of  mornings.  She 
would  have  multitudinous  furs  and  a  closed  and  heated  limou 
sine  to  carry  her  through  the  white  world.  She  could  salve 
her  conscience  by  taking  up  some  of  the  more  comfortable 
forms  of  war  work.  She  could  manage  a  Red  Cross  bandage- 
factory  or  a  knitting-room  or  serve  hot  dishes  in  a  cozy  canteen. 

At  times  from  sheer  creature  discomfort  she  inclined  toward 
matrimony,  as  many  another  woman  has  done.  These 
craven  moods  alternated  with  periods  of  self -rebuke.  She 
told  herself  that  such  a  marriage  would  dishonor  her  and  cheat 
Davidge. 

Besides,  marriage  was  not  all  wedding-bells  and  luxury;  it 
had  its  gall  as  well  as  its  honey.  Even  in  divorceful  America 
marriage  still  possesses  for  women  a  certain  finality.  Only  one 
marriage  in  nine  ended  in  divorce  that  year. 

Mamise  knew  men  and  women,  married,  single,  and  betwixt. 
She  was  far,  indeed,  from  that  more  or  less  imaginary  char 
acter  so  frequent  in  fiction  and  so  rare  in  reality,  the  young 
woman  who  knows  nothing  of  life  and  mankind.  Like  every 
other  woman  that  ever  lived,  she  knew  a  good  deal  more 
than  she  would  confess,  and  had  had  more  experience  than  she 
would  admit  under  oath.  In  fact,  she  did  not  deny  that  she 
knew  more  than  she  wished  she  knew,  and  Davidge  had 
found  her  very  tantalizing  about  just  how  much  her  experience 
totaled  up. 

She  had  observed  the  enormous  difference  between  a  man 
and  a  woman  who  meet  occasionally  and  the  same  people 
chained  together  interminably.  Quail  is  a  delicacy  for  in 
valids  and  gourmets,  but  notoriously  intolerable  as  a  steady 
diet.  On  the  other  hand,  bread  is  forever  good.  One  never 
tires  of  bread.  And  a  lucky  marriage  is  as  perennially  re 
freshing  as  bread  and  butter.  The  maddening  thing  about 
marriage  is  what  makes  other  lotteries  irresistible:  after  all, 
capital  prizes  do  exist,  and  some  people  get  them. 

Mamise  had  seen  happy  mates,  rich  and  poor.  In  her 
lonelier  hours  she  coveted  their  dual  blessedness,  enriched 
with  joys  and  griefs  shared  in  plenty  and  in  privation. 

Mamise  liked  Davidge  better  than  she  had  ever  liked  any 


THE    CUP   OF    FURY  241 

other  man.  She  supposed  she  loved  him.  Sometimes  she 
longed  for  him  with  a  kind  of  ferocity.  Then  she  was  afraid 
of  him,  of  what  he  would  be  like  as  a  husband,  of  what  she 
would  be  like  as  a  wife. 

Mamise  was  in  an  absolute  chaos  of  mind,  afraid  of  every 
thing  and  everybody,  from  the  weather  to  wedlock.  She  had 
been  lured  into  an  office  by  the  fascinating  advertisements  of 
freedom,  a  career,  achievement,  doing-your-bit  and  other 
catchwords.  She  had  found  that  business  has  its  boredoms 
no  less  than  the  prison  walls  of  home,  commerce  its  treadmills 
and  its  oakum-picking  no  less  than  the  jail.  The  cozy  little 
cottage  and  the  pleasant  chores  of  solitude  began  to  nag  her 
soul. 

The  destruction  of  the  good  ship  Clara  had  dealt  her  a 
heavier  blow  than  she  at  first  realized,  for  the  mind  suffers 
from  obscure  internal  injuries  as  the  body  does  after  a  great 
shock.  She  understood  what  bitter  tragedies  threaten  the 
business  man  no  less  than  the  monarch,  the  warrior,  the  poet, 
and  the  lover,  though  there  has  not  been  many  an  ^Sschylos 
or  Euripides  or  Dante  to  make  poetry  of  the  Prometheus 
chained  to  the  rocks  of  trade  with  the  vulture  pay-roll  gnawing 
at  his  profits;  the  CEdipos  in  the  factory  who  sees  everything 
gone  horribly  awry;  or  the  slow  pilgrim  through  the  business 
hell  with  all  the  infernal  variations  of  bankruptcy,  strikes, 
panics,  and  competition. 

The  blowing  up  of  the  Clara  had  revealed  the  pitiful  truth 
that  men  may  toil  like  swarming  bees  upon  a  painful  and 
costly  structure,  only  to  see  it  all  annulled  at  once  by  a 
careless  or  a  malicious  stranger.  The  Clara  served  as  a  warn 
ing  that  the  ship  Mamise  now  on  the  stocks  and  growing 
ever  so  slowly  might  be  never  finished,  or  destroyed  as  soon 
as  done.  A  pall  of  discontent  was  gathering  about  her. 
It  was  the  turn  of  that  season  in  her  calendar.  The  weather 
was  conspiring  with  the  inner  November. 

The  infamous  winter  of  1917-18  was  preparing  to  descend 
upon  the  blackest  year  in  human  annals.  Everybody  was 
unhappy;  there  was  a  frightful  shortage  of  food  among  all 
nations,  a  terrifying  shortage  of  coal,  and  the  lowest  tem 
perature  ever  known  would  be  recorded.  America,  less 
unfortunate  than  the  other  peoples,  was  bitterly  disappointed 
in  herself. 


242  THE    CUP   OF    FURY 

There  was  food  in  plenty  for  America,  but  not  for  her  con 
federates.  The  prices  were  appalling.  Wages  went  up  and  up, 
but  never  quite  caught  the  expenses.  It  was  necessary  to 
send  enormous  quantities  of  everything  to  our  allies  lest 
they  perish  before  we  could  arrive  with  troops.  And  Germany 
went  on  fiendishly  destroying  ships,  foodstuffs,  and  capital, 
displaying  in  every  victory  a  more  insatiable  cruelty,  a  more 
revolting  cynicism  toward  justice,  mercy,  or  truth. 

The  Kaiserly  contempt  for  America's  importance  seemed 
to  be  justified.  People  were  beginning  to  remember  Rome, 
and  to  wonder  if,  after  all,  Germany  might  not  crush  France 
and  England  with  the  troops  that  had  demolished  Russia. 
And  then  America  would  have  to  fight  alone. 

At  this  time  Mamise  stumbled  upon  an  old  magazine  of  the 
ancient  date  of  1914.  It  was  full  of  prophecies  that  the 
Kaiser  would  be  dethroned,  exiled,  hanged,  perhaps.  The 
irony  of  it  was  ghastly.  Nothing  was  more  impossible  than 
the  downfall  of  the  Kaiser — who  seemed  verifying  his  boasts 
that  he  took"  his  crown  from  God.  He  was  praising  the  strong 
sword  of  the  unconquerable  Germany.  He  was  marshaling 
the  millions  from  his  eastern  front  to  throw  the  British  troops 
into  the  sea  and  smother  the  France  he  had  bled  white.  The 
best  that  the  most  hopeful  could  do  was  to  mutter:  "Hurry! 
hurry!  We've  got  to  hurry!" 

Mamise  grew  fretful  about  the  delay  to  the  ship  that  was 
to  take  her  name  across  the  sea.  She  went  to  Davidge  to 
protest :  "Can't  you  hurry  up  my  ship?  If  she  isn't  launched 
soon  I'm  going  to  go  mad." 

Davidge  threw  back  his  head  and  emitted  a  noise  between 
laughter  and  profanity.  He  picked  up  a  letter  and  flung  it 
down. 

"I've  just  got  orders  changing  the  specifications  again. 
This  is  the  third  time,  and  the  third  time's  the  charm ;  for  now 
we've  got  to  take  out  all  we've  put  in,  make  a  new  set  of 
drawings  and  a  new  set  of  castings  and  pretty  blamed  near 
tear  down  the  whole  ship  and  rebuild  it." 

"In  the  name  of  Heaven,  why?" 

"In  the  name  of  hades,  because  we've  got  to  get  a  herd  of 
railroad  locomotives  to  France,  and  sending  them  over  in 
pieces  won't  do.  They  want  'em  ready  to  run.  So  the 
powers  that  be  have  ordered  me  to  provide  two  hatchways 


THE    CUP   OF    FURY  243 

big  enough  to  lower  whole  locomotives  through,  and  pigeon 
holes  in  the  hold  big  enough  to  carry  them.  As  far  as  the 
Mamise  is  concerned,  that  means  we've  just  about  got  to 
rub  it  out  and  do  it  over  again.  It's  a  case  of  back  to  the 
mold-loft  for  Mamise." 

"And  about  how  much  more  delay  will  this  mean?" 

"Oh,  about  ninety  days  or  thereabouts.  If  we're  lucky 
we'll  launch  her  by  spring." 

This  was  almost  worse  than  the  death  of  the  Clara.  That 
tragedy  had  been  noble;  it  dealt  a  noble  blow  and  woke  the 
heart  to  a  noble  grief  and  courage.  But  deferment  made  the 
heart  sick,  and  the  brain  and  almost  the  stomach. 

Davidge  liked  the  disappointment  no  better  than  Mamise 
did,  but  he  was  used  to  it. 

"And  now  aren't  you  glad  you're  not  a  ship-builder? 
How  would  you  feel  if  you  had  got  your  wish  to  work  in  the 
yard  and  had  turned  your  little  velvet  hands  into  a  pair  of 
nutmeg-graters  by  driving  about  ten  thousand  rivets  into 
those  plates,  only  to  have  to  cut  'em  all  out  again  and  drive 
'em  into  an  entirely  new  set  of  plates,  knowing  that  maybe 
they'd  have  to  come  out  another  time  and  go  back?  How'd 
you  like  that?" 

Mamise  lifted  her  shoulders  and  let  them  fall. 

Davidge  went  on: 

"That's  a  business  man's  life,  my  dear — eternally  making 
things  that  won't  sell,  putting  his  soul  and  his  capital  and  his 
preparation  into  a  pile  of  stock  that  nobody  will  take  off  his 
hands.  But  he  has  to  go  right  on,  borrowing  money  and 
pledging  the  past  for  the  future  and  never  knowing  whether 
his  dreams  will  turn  out  to  be  dollars  or — junk!" 

Mamise  realized  for  the  first  time  the  pathos,  the  higher 
drama  of  the  manufacturer's  world,  that  world  which  poets 
and  some  other  literary  artists  do  not  describe  because  they 
are  too  ignorant,  too  petty,  too  bookish.  They  sneer  at  the 
noble  word  commercial  as  if  it  were  a  reproach! 

Mamise,  however,  looked  on  Davidge  in  his  swivel-chair 
as  a  kind  of  despondent  demigod,  a  Titan  weary  of  the  eternal 
strife.  She  tried  to  rise  beyond  a  poetical  height  to  the  clouds 
of  the  practical. 

"What  will  you  do  with  all  the  workmen  who  are  on  that 
job?" 


244  THE    CUP   OF    FURY 

Davidge  grinned.  "They're  announcing  their  monthly 
strike  for  higher  wages — threatening  to  lay  off  the  force. 
It  'd  serve  'em  right  to  take  'em  at  their  word  for  a  while. 
But  you  simply  oan't  fight  a  labor  union  according  to  Queens- 
bery  rules,  so  I'll  give  'em  the  raise  and  put  'em  on  another 
ship." 

"And  the  Mamise  will  be  idle  and  neglected  for  three 
months." 

"Just  about." 

"The  Germans  couldn't  have  done  much  worse  by  her,  could 
they?" 

"Not  much." 

"  I  think  I'll  call  it  a  day  and  go  home,"  said  Mamise. 

"Better  call  it  a  quarter  and  go  to  New  York  or  Palm 
Beach  or  somewhere  where  there's  a  little  gaiety." 

"Are  you  sick  of  seeing  me  round?" 

"Since  you  won't  marry  me — yes." 

Mamise  sniffed  at  this  and  set  her  little  desk  in  order, 
aligned  the  pencils  in  the  tray,  put  the  carbons  back  in  the 
box  and  the  rubber  cover  on  the  typewriter.  Then  she  sank 
it  into  its  well  and  put  on  her  hat. 

Davidge  held  her  heavy  coat  for  her  and  could  not  resist 
the  opportunity  to  fold  her  into  his  arms.  Just  as  his  arms 
closed  about  her  and  he  opened  his  lips  to  beg  her  not  to 
desert  him  he  saw  over  her  shoulder  the  door  opening. 

He  had  barely  time  to  release  her  and  pretend  to  be  still 
holding  her  coat  when  Miss  Gabus  entered.  His  elaborate 
guiltlessness  confirmed  her  bitterest  suspicions,  and  she  crossed 
the  room  to  deposit  a  sheaf  of  letters  in  Davidge's  "in"  basket 
and  gather  up  the  letters  in  his  "out"  basket.  She  passed 
across  the  stage  with  an  effect  of  absolute  refrigeration,  like 
one  of  Richard  Ill's  ghosts. 

Davidge  was  furious  at  Miss  Gabus  and  himself.  Mamise 
was  furious  at  them  both — partly  for  the  awkwardness  of  the 
incident,  partly  for  the  failure  of  Davidge's  enterprise  against 
her  lips. 

When  Miss  Gabus  was  gone  the  ecstatic  momentum  was 
lost.  Davidge  grumbled: 

"Shall  I  see  you  to-morrow?" 

"I  don't  know,"  said  Mamise. 

She  gave  him  her  hand.     He  pressed  it  in  his  two  palms 


THE    CUP   OF    FURY  245 

and  shook  his  head.  She  shook  her  head.  They  were  both 
rebuking  the  bad  behavior  of  the  fates. 

Mamise  trudged  homeward — or  at  least  houseward.  She 
was  in  another  of  her  irresolute  states,  and  irresolution  is  the 
most  disappointing  of  all  the  moods  to  the  irresolute  ones 
and  all  the  neighbors.  It  was  irresolution  that  made  "Ham 
let"  a  five-act  play,  and  only  a  Shakespeare  could  have  kept 
him  endurable. 

Mamise  was  becoming  unendurable  to  herself.  When  she 
got  to  her  cottage  she  found  it  as  dismal  as  an  empty  ice 
box.  When  she  had  started  the  fire  going  she  had  nothing 
else  to  do.  In  sheer  desperation  she  decided  to  answer  a  few 
letters.  There  was  an  old  one  from  Polly  Widdicombe. 
She  read  it  again.  It  contained  the  usual  invitation  to  come 
back  to  reason  and  Washington. 

Just  for  something  positive  to  do  she  resolved  to  go.  There 
was  a  tonic  in  the  mere  act  of  decision.  She  wrote  a  letter. 
She  felt  that  she  could  not  wait  so  long  as  its  answer  would 
require.  She  resolved  to  send  a  telegram. 

This  meant  hustling  out  into  the  cold  again,  but  it  was 
something  to  do,  somewhere  to  go,  some  excuse  for  a  hope. 

Polly  telegraphed: 

Come  without  fail  dying  to  see  you  bring  along  a  scuttle  of  coal  if 
you  can. 

Mamise  showed  Davidge  the  telegram.  He  was  very 
plucky  about  letting  her  go.  For  her  sake  he  was  so  glad 
that  he  concealed  his  own  loneliness.  That  made  her  under 
estimate  it.  He  confirmed  her  belief  that  he  was  glad  to  be 
rid  of  her  by  making  a  lark  of  her  departure.  He  filled  an 
old  suit-case  with  coal  and  insisted  on  her  taking  it.  The 
porter  who  lugged  it  along  the  platform  at  Washington  gave 
Mamise  a  curious  look.  He  supposed  that  this  was  one  of 
those  suit-cases  full  of  bottled  goods  that  were  coming  into 
Washington  in  such  multitudes  since  the  town  had  been 
decreed  absolutely  dry.  He  shook  it  and  was  surprised  when 
he  failed  to  hear  the  glug-glug  of  liquor. 

But  Polly  welcomed  the  suit-case  as  if  it  had  been  full  of 
that  other  form  of  carbon  which  women  wear  in  rings  and 
necklaces.  The  whole  country  was  underheated.  To  the 


246  THE    CUP   OF    FURY 

wheatless,  meatless,  sweetless  days  there  were  added  the  heat- 
less  months.  Major  Widdicombe  took  his  breakfasts  stand 
ing  up  in  his  overcoat.  Polly  and  Mamise  had  theirs  in  bed, 
and  the  maids  that  brought  it  wore  their  heaviest  clothes. 

There  were  long  lines  of  petitioners  all  day  at  the  offices 
of  the  Fuel  Administration.  But  it  did  little  good.  All  the 
shops  and  theaters  were  kept  shut  on  Mondays.  Country 
clubs  were  closed.  Every  device  to  save  a  lump  of  coal  was 
put  into  legal  effect  so  that  the  necessary  war  factories  might 
run  and  the  ships  go  over  the  sea.  Soon  there  would  be 
gasoleneless  Sundays  by  request,  and  all  the  people  would 
obey.  Bills  of  fare  at  home  and  at  hotel  would  be  regulated 
by  law.  Restaurants  would  be  fined  for  serving  more  than 
one  meat  to  one  person.  Grocers  would  be  fined  for  selling 
too  much  sugar  to  a  family.  Placards,  great  billboards,  and 
all  the  newspapers  were  filled  with  counsels  to  save,  save,  save, 
and  buy,  buy,  buy  Bonds,  Bonds,  Bonds  People  grew  de 
pressed  at  all  this  effort,  all  this  sacrifice  with  so  little  show 
of  accomplishment. 

American  troops,  except  a  pitiful  few,  were  still  in  America 
and  apparently  doomed  to  stay.  This  could  easily  be  proved 
by  mathematics,  for  there  were  not  ships  enough  to  carry 
them  and  their  supplies.  The  Germans  were  building  up 
reserves  in  France,  and  they  had  every  advantage  of  inner 
lines.  They  could  hurl  an  avalanche  of  men  at  any  one  of  a 
hundred  points  of  the  thin  Allied  line  almost  without  warning, 
and  wherever  they  struck  the  line  would  split  before  the 
reserves  could  be  rushed  up  to  the  crevasse.  And  once 
through,  what  could  stop  them?  Indeed,  the  whisper  went 
about  that  the  Allies  had  no  reserves  worth  the  name.  France 
and  England  were  literally  "all  in." 

Success  and  the  hope  of  success  did  not  make  the  Germans 
meek.  They  credited  God  with  a  share  in  their  achievement 
and  pinned  an  Iron  Cross  on  Him,  but  they  kept  mortgaging 
His  resources  for  the  future.  Those  who  had  protested  that 
the  war  had  been  forced  on  a  peaceful  Germany  and  that  her 
majestic  fight  was  all  in  self-defense  came  out  now  to  confess 
— or  rather  to  boast — that  they  had  planned  this  triumph  all 
along;  for  thirty  years  they  had  built  and  drilled  and  stored 
up  reserves.  And  now  they  were  about  to  sweep  the  world 
and  make  it  a  German  planet. 


THE    CUP   OF    FURY  247 

The  peaceful  Kaiser  admitted  that  he  had  toiled  for  this 
approaching  day  of  glory.  His  war-weary,  hunger-pinched 
subjects  were  whipped  up  to  further  endurance  by  a  brandy 
of  fiery  promises,  the  prospects  of  incalculable  loot,  vast 
colonies,  mountains  of  food,  and  indemnities  sky-high.  They 
were  told  to  be  glad  that  America  had  come  into  the  war 
openly  at  last,  so  that  her  untouched  treasure-chest  could 
pay  the  bills. 

In  the  whole  history  of  chicken-computation  there  were 
probably  never  so  many  fowls  counted  before  they  were 
hatched — and  in  the  final  outcome  never  such  a  crackling  and 
such  a  stench  of  rotten  eggs. 

But  no  one  in  those  drear  days  was  mad  enough  to  see  the 
outcome.  The  strategical  experts  protested  against  the  waste 
ful  "side-shows"  in  Mesopotamia,  Palestine,  and  Saloniki, 
and  the  taking  of  Jerusalem  was  counted  merely  a  pretty  bit 
of  Christmas  shopping  that  could  not  weigh  against  the  fall 
of  Kerensky,  the  end  of  Russian  resistance  in  the  Bolshevik 
upheaval,  and  the  Italian  stampede  down  their  own  mountain 
sides. 

Of  all  the  optimists  crazy  enough  to  prophesy  a  speedy 
German  collapse,  no  one  put  his  finger  on  Bulgaria  as  the 
first  to  break. 

So  sublime,  indeed,  was  the  German  confidence  that  many 
in  America  who  had  been  driven  to  cover  because  of  their 
Teutonic  activities  before  America  entered  the  war  began 
to  dream  that  they,  too,  would  reap  a  great  reward  for  their 
martyrdom  on  behalf  of  the  Fatherland. 

The  premonition  of  the  dawning  of  Der  Tag  stirred  the 
heart  of  Nicky  Easton,  of  course.  He  had  led  for  months  the 
life  of  a  fox  in  a  hunt-club  county.  Every  time  he  put  his 
head  out  he  heard  the  bay  of  the  hounds.  He  had  stolen  very 
few  chickens,  and  he  expected  every  moment  to  be  pounced 
on.  But  new  that  he  felt  assured  of  a  German  triumph  in  a 
little  while,  he  began  to  think  of  the  future.  His  heart  turned 
again  to  Mamise. 

His  life  of  hiding  and  stealing  about  from  place  to  place 
had  compelled  him  to  a  more  ascetic  existence  than  he  had 
been  used  to.  His  German  accent  did  not  help  him,  and  he 
had  found  that  even  those  heavy  persons  known  as  light 
women,  though  they  had  no  other  virtue,  had  patriotism 


248  THE    CUP   OF    FURY 

enough  to  greet  his  advances  with  fierce  hostility.  His  dialect 
insulted  those  who  had  relinquished  the  privilege  of  being 
insulted,  and  they  would  not  soil  their  open  palms  with 
German-stained  money. 

In  his  alliance  with  Jake  Nuddle  for  the  blowing  up  of  the 
Clara,  and  their  later  communications  looking  toward  the 
destruction  of  other  ships,  he  kept  informed  of  Mamise.  He 
always  asked  Jake  about  her.  He  was  bitterly  depressed 
by  the  news  that  she  was  "sweet  on"  Davidge.  He  was 
exultant  when  he  learned  from  Jake  that  she  had  given  up 
her  work  in  the  office  and  had  gone  to  Washington.  Jake 
learned  her  address  from  Abbie,  and  passed  it  on  to  Nicky. 

Nicky  was  tempted  to  steal  into  Washington  and  surprise 
her.  But  enemy  aliens  were  forbidden  to  visit  the  capital, 
and  he  was  afraid  to  go  by  train.  He  had  wild  visions  of 
motoring  thither  and  luring  her  to  a  ride  with  him.  He 
wanted  to  kidnap  her.  He  might  force  her  to  marry  him  by 
threatening  to  kill  her  and  himself.  At  least  he  might  make 
her  his  after  the  classic  manner  of  his  fellow-countrymen  in 
Belgium.  But  he  had  not  force  enough  to  carry  out  anything 
so  masterful.  He  was  a  sentimental  German,  not  a  warrior. 

In  his  more  emotional  moods  he  began  to  feel  a  prophetic 
sorrow  for  Marie  Louise  after  the  Germans  had  conquered 
the  world.  She  would  be  regarded  as  a  traitress.  She  had 
been  adopted  by  Sir  Joseph  Webling  and  had  helped  him, 
only  to  abandon  the  cause  and  go  over  to  the  enemy. 

If  Nicky  could  convert  her  again  to  loyalty,  persuade  her 
to  do  some  brave  deed  for  the  Fatherland  in  redemption  of 
her  blacksliding,  then  when  Der  Tag  came  he  could  reveal 
what  she  had  done.  When  in  that  resurrection  day  the  graves 
opened  and  all  the  good  German  spies  and  propagandists 
came  forth  to  be  crowned  by  Gott  and  the  Kaiser,  Nicky  could 
lead  Marie  Louise  to  the  dual  throne,  and,  describing  her 
reconciliation  to  the  cause,  claim  her  as  his  bride.  And  the 
Kaiser  would  say,  "Ende  gut,  alles  gut!" 

Never  a  missionary  felt  more  sanctity  in  offering  salvation 
to  a  lost  soul  by  way  of  repentance  than  Nicky  felt  when  he 
went  to  the  house  of  an  American  friend  and  had  Mamise 
called  on  the  long-distance  telephone. 

Mamise  answered,  "Yes,  this  is  Miss  Webling,"  to  the 
faint-voiced  long-distance  operator,  and  was  told  to  hold  the 


THE    CUP   OF    FURY  249 

wire.     She  heard:  "All  ready  with  Washington.     Go  ahead  " 
Then  she  heard  a  timid  query : 

"Hallow,  hallow!     Iss  this  Miss  Vapelink?" 
She  was  shocked  at  the  familiar  dialect.     She  answered: 
'This  is  Miss  Webling,  yes.     Who  is  it?" 
'You  don'd  know  my  woice?" 
'Yes — yes.     I  know  you — " 
'Pleass  to  say  no  names." 
'Where  are  you?" 
'In  Philadelphia." 
'All  right.     What  do  you  want?" 
'To  see  you." 

'You  evidently  know  my  address." 
'You  know  I  cannot  come  by  Vashington." 
'Then  how  can  I  see  you?" 
'You  could  meet  me  some  place,  yes?" 
'Certainly  not." 

'It  is  important,  most  important." 
'To  whom?" 

'To  you — only  to  you.     It  is  for  your  sake." 
She  laughed  at  this;   yet  it  set  her  curiosity  on  fire,  as  he 
hoped  it  would.     He  could  almost  hear  her  pondering.     But 
what  she  asked  was: 

"How  did  you  find  my  address?" 
"From  Chake— Chake  Nuttle." 

He  could  not  see  the  wild  look  that  threw  her  eyes  and  lips 
wide.     She  had  never  dreamed  of  such  an  acquaintance.     The 
mere  possibility  of  it  set  her  brain  whirling.     It  seemed  to 
explain  many  things,  explain  them  with  a  horrible  clarity. 
She  dared  not  reveal  her  suspicions  to  Nicky.     She  said 
nothing  till  she  heard  him  speak  again: 
"Veil,  you  come,  yes?" 
"Where?" 

"You  could  come  here  best?" 
"No,  it's  too  far." 

"By  Baltimore  we  could  meet  once?" 
"All  right.     Where?    When?" 

"To-morrow.     I  do  not  know  Baltimore  good.     Ve  could 
take  ride  by  automobile  and  talk  so.     Yes?" 
"All  right."     This  a  little  anxiously. 
"To-morrow  evening.     I  remember  it  is  a  train  gets  there 


25o  THE    CUP   OF    FURY 

from   Vashington   about   eight.     I   meet   you.     Make   sure 
nobody  sees  you  take  that  train,  yes?" 

'Yes." 

'You  know  people  follow  people  sometimes." 

'Yes." 

'I  trust  you  alvays,  Marie  Louise." 

'All  right.     Good-by." 

'Goot-py,  Marie  Louise." 


CHAPTER  II 

WHILE  Mamise  was  talking  her  telephone  ear  had  suf 
fered  several  sharp  and  painful  rasps,  as  if  angry  rattle 
snakes  had  wakened  in  the  receiver. 

The  moment  she  put  it  up  the  bell  rang.  Supposing  that 
Nicky  had  some  postscript  to  add,  she  lifted  the  receiver  again. 
Her  ear  was  as  bewildered  as  your  tongue  when  it  expects  to 
taste  one  thing  and  tastes  another,  for  it  was  Davidge's  voice 
that  spoke,  asking  for  her.  She  called  him  by  name,  and  he 
growled: 

"Good  Lord!  is  that  you?  Who  was  the  fascinating  stran 
ger  who  kept  me  waiting  so  long?" 

"Don't  you  wish  you  knew?"  she  laughed.  "Where  are 
you  now  ?  At  the  shipyard  ? ' ' 

"No,  I'm  in  Washington — ran  up  on  business.  Can  I  see 
you  to-night?" 

"I  hope  so — unless  we're  going  out — as  I  believe  we  are. 
Hold  the  wire,  won't  you,  while  I  ask."  She  came  back  in 
due  season  to  say,  "Polly  says  you  are  to  come  to  dinner  and 
go  to  a  dance  with  us  afterward." 

"A  dance?     I'm  not  invited." 

"It's  a  kind  of  club  affair  at  a  hotel.  Polly  has  the  right 
to  take  you — no  end  of  big  bugs  will  be  there." 

"I'm  rusty  on  dancing,  but  with  you — " 

"Thanks.  We'll  expect  you,  then.  Dinner  is  at  eight. 
Wrap  up  well.  It's  cold,  isn't  it?" 

He  thought  it  divine  of  her  to  think  of  his  comfort.  The 
thought  of  her  in  his  arms  dancing  set  his  heart  to  rioting. 
He  was  singing  as  he  dressed,  and  as  he  rode  out  to  Grinden 
Hall,  singing  a  specimen  of  the  new  musical  insanity  known 
as  "jazz" — so  pestilential  a  music  that  even  the  fiddlers 
capered  and  writhed. 

The  Potomac  was  full  of  tumultuous  ice,  and  the  old 
Rosslyn  bridge  squealed  with  cold  under  the  motor.  It  was 


252  THE    CUP    OF    FURY 

good  to  see  the  lights  of  the  Hall  at  last,  and  to  thaw  himself 
out  at  the  huge  fireplace. 

"Lucky  to  get  a  little  wood,"  said  Major  Widdicombe. 
"Don't  know  what  we'll  do  when  it's  gone.  Coal  is  next  to 
impossible." 

Then  the  women  came  down,  Polly  and  Mamise  and  two 
or  three  other  house  guests,  and  some  wives  of  important 
people.  They  laid  off  their  wraps  and  then  decided  to  keep 
them  on. 

Davidge  had  been  so  used  to  seeing  Mamise  as  a  plainly 
clad,  discouraged  office-hack  that  when  she  descended  the 
stairs  and  paused  on  the  landing  a  few  steps  from  the  floor, 
to  lift  her  eyebrows  and  her  lip-corners  at  him,  he  was  glad 
of  the  pause. 

"Break  it  to  me  gently,"  he  called  across  the  balustrade. 

She  descended  the  rest  of  the  way  and  advanced,  revealed 
in  her  complete  height  and  all  her  radiant  vesture.  He  was 
dazed  by  her  unimagined  splendor. 

As  she  gave  him  her  hand  and  collected  with  her  eyes  the 
tribute  in  his,  she  said: 

"Break  what  to  you  gently?" 

1 '  You ! "  he  groaned.  ' '  Good  Lord !  Talk  about  '  the  glory 
that  was  Greece  and  the  grandeur  that  was  Rome'!" 

With  amiable  reciprocity  she  returned  him  a  compliment  on 
his  evening  finery. 

"The  same  to  you  and  many  of  them.  You  are  quite  stun 
ning  in  de'collete'.  For  a  pair  of  common  laborers,  we  are 
certainly  gaudy." 

Polly  came  up  and  greeted  Davidge  with,  "So  you're  the 
fascinating  brute  that  keeps  Marie  Louise  down  in  the  peni 
tentiary  of  that  awful  ship-factory." 

Davidge  indicated  her  brilliance  and  answered:  "Never 
again.  She's  fired!  We  can't  afford  her." 

"Bully  for  you,"  said  Polly.  "I  suppose  I'm  an  old- 
fashioned,  grandmotherly  sort  of  person,  but  I'll  be  damned  if 
I  can  see  why  a  woman  that  can  look  as  gorgeous  as  Marie 
Louise  here  should  be  pounding  typewriter  keys  in  an  office. 
Of  course,  if  she  had  to —  But  even  then,  I  should  say  that 
it  would  be  her  solemn  religious  duty  to  sell  her  soul  for  a  lot 
of  glad-rags. 

"A  lot  of  people  are  predicting  that  women  will  never  go 


THE    CUP   OF    FURY  253 

back  to  the  foolish  frills  and  furbelows  of  before  the  war;  but 
— well,  I'm  no  prophetess,  but  all  I  can  say  is  that  if  this 
war  puts  an  end  to  the  dressmaker's  art,  it  will  certainly  put 
civilization  on  the  blink.  Now,  honestly,  what  could  a  woman 
accomplish  in  the  world  if  she  worked  in  overalls  twenty-four 
hours  a  day  for  twenty-four  years — what  could  she  make  that 
would  be  more  worth  while  than  getting  herself  all  dressed  up 
and  looking  her  best?" 

Davidge  said:  "You're  talking  like  a  French  aristocrat 
before  the  Revolution;  but  I  wish  you  could  convince  her 
of  it." 

Mamise  was  trying  to  take  her  triumph  casually,  but  she 
was  thrilled,  thrilled  with  the  supreme  pride  of  a  woman  in 
her  best  clothes — in  and  out  of  her  best  clothes,  and  liberally 
illuminated  with  jewelry.  She  was  now  something  like  a  great 
singer  singing  the  highest  note  of  her  master-aria  in  her  best 
r61e — herself  at  once  the  perfect  instrument  and  the  perfect 
artist. 

Marie  Louise  went  in  on  Davidge's  arm.  The  dining-room 
was  in  gala  attire,  the  best  silver  and  all  of  it  out — flowers 
and  candles.  But  the  big  vault  was  cold;  the  men  shivered 
and  marveled  at  the  women,  who  left  their  wraps  on  the 
backs  of  their  chairs  and  sat  up  in  no  apparent  discomfort 
with  shoulders,  backs,  chests,  and  arms  naked  to  the  chill. 

Polly  was  moved  to  explain  to  the  great  folk  present  just 
who  Mamise  was.  She  celebrated  Mamise  in  her  own  way. 

"To  look  at  Miss  Webling,  would  you  take  her  for  a  perfect 
nut?  She  is,  though — the  worst  ever.  Do  you  know  what 
she  has  done?  Taken  up  stenography  and  gone  into  the 
office  of  a  ship-building  gang!" 

The  other  squaws  exclaimed  upon  her  with  various  out 
cries  of  amazement. 

"What's  more,"  said  Mamise,  "I  live  on  my  salary." 

This  was  considered  incredible  in  the  Washington  of  then. 
Mamise  admitted  that  it  took  management. 

Mamise  said:  "Polly,  can  you  see  me  living  in  a  shanty 
cooking  my  own  breakfast  and  dinner  and  waiting  on  myself 
and  washing  my  own  dishes?  And  for  lunch  going  to  a  big 
mess-hall,  waiting  on  myself,  too,  and  eating  on  the  swollen 
arm  of  a  big  chair?" 

Polly  shook  her  head  in  despair  of  her.     "Let  those  do  it 


254  THE    CUP   OF    FURY 

that  have  to.  Nobody's  going  to  get  me  to  live  like  a  Belgian 
refugee  without  giving  me  the  same  excuse." 

Mamise  suddenly  felt  that  her  heroism  was  hardly  more 
than  a  silly  affectation,  a  patriotic  pose.  In  these  surround 
ings  the  memory  of  her  daily  life  was  disgusting,  plain  stupid 
ity.  Here  she  was  in  her  element,  at  her  superlative.  She 
breathed  deeply  of  the  atmosphere  of  luxury,  the  incense  of 
rich  food  served  ceremoniously  to  resplendent  people. 

"I'm  beginning  to  agree  with  you,  Polly.  I  don't  think 
I'll  ever  go  back  to  honest  work  again." 

She  thought  she  saw  in  Davidge's  eyes  a  gleam  of  approval. 
It  occurred  to  her  that  he  was  renewing  his  invitation  to  her 
to  become  his  wife  and  live  as  a  lady.  She  was  not  insulted 
by  the  surmise. 

When  the  women  departed  for  the  drawing-room,  the  men 
sat  for  a  while,  talking  of  the  coal  famine,  the  appalling  debts 
the  country  was  heaping  into  mountains — the  blood-sweating 
taxes,  the  business  end  of  the  war,  the  prospect  for  the  spring 
campaign  on  the  Western  Front,  the  avalanche  of  Russia,  the 
rise  of  the  Bolsheviki,  the  story  that  they  were  in  German 
pay,  the  terrible  toll  of  American  lives  it  would  take  to  re 
place  the  Russian  armies,  and  the  humiliating  delay  in  getting 
men  into  uniform,  equipped,  and  ferried  across  the  sea.  The 
astounding  order  had  just  been  promulgated,  shutting  down 
all  industry  and  business  for  four  days  and  for  the  ten  suc 
ceeding  Mondays  in  order  to  eke  out  coal ;  this  was  regarded 
as  worse  than  the  loss  of  a  great  battle.  Every  aspect  of 
the  war  was  so  depressing  that  the  coroner's  inquest  broke 
up  at  once  when  Major  Widdicombe  said: 

"I  get  enough  of  this  in  the  shop,  and  I'm  frozen  through. 
Let's  go  in  and  jaw  the  women." 

Concealing  their  loneliness,  the  men  entered  the  drawing- 
room  with  the  majestic  languor  of  lions  well  fed. 

Davidge  paused  to  study  Mamise  from  behind  a  smoke 
screen  that  concealed  his  stare.  She  was  listening  politely  to 
the  wife  of  Holman,  of  the  War  Trade  Board.  Mrs.  Holman's 
stories  were  always  long,  and  people  were  always  interrupting 
them  because  they  had  to  or  stay  mute  all  night.  Davidge 
was  glad  of  her  clatter,  because  it  gave  him  a  chance  to  revel 
in  Mamise.  She  was  presented  to  his  eyes  in  a  kind  of  miti 
gated  silhouette  against  a  bright-hued  lamp-shade.  She  was 


THE    CUP   OF    FURY  255 

seated  sidewise  on  a  black  Chinese  chair.  On  the  back  of  it 
her  upraised  arm  rested.  Davidge's  eyes  followed  the  strange 
and  marvelous  outline  described  by  the  lines  of  that  arm, 
running  into  the  sharp  rise  of  a  shoulder,  like  an  apple  against 
the  throat,  the  bizarre  shape  of  the  head  in  its  whimsical 
coiffure,  the  slope  of  the  other  shoulder  carrying  the  caressing 
glance  down  that  arm  to  the  hand  clasping  a  sheaf  of  out 
spread  plumes  against  her  knee,  and  on  along  to  where  one 
quaint  impossible  slipper  with  a  fantastic  high  heel  emerged 
from  a  stream  of  fabric  that  flowed  on  out  to  the  train. 

Then  with  the  vision  of  honorable  desire  he  imagined  the 
body  of  her  where  it  disappeared  below  the  shoulders  into  the 
possession  of  the  gown ;  he  imagined  with  a  certain  awe  what 
she  must  be  like  beneath  all  those  long  lines,  those  rounded 
surfaces,  those  eloquent  wrinkles  with  their  curious  little 
pockets  full  of  shadow,  among  the  pools  of  light  that  satin 
shimmers  with. 

In  other  times  and  climes  men  had  worn  figured  silks  and 
satins  and  brocades,  had  worn  long  gowns  and  lace-trimmed 
sleeves,  jeweled  bonnets  and  curls,  but  now  the  male  had 
surrendered  to  the  female  his  prehistoric  right  to  the  fanciful 
plumage.  These  war  days  were  grown  so  austere  that  it  be 
gan  to  seem  wrong  even  for  women  to  dress  with  much  more 
than  a  masculine  sobriety.  But  the  occasion  of  this  ball  had 
removed  the  ban  on  extravagance. 

The  occasion  justified  the  maximum  display  of  jewelry,  too, 
and  Mamise  wore  all  she  had.  She  had  taken  her  gems  from 
their  prison  in  the  safe-deposit  box  in  the  Trust  Company 
cellar.  They  seemed  to  be  glad  to  be  at  home  in  the  light 
again.  They  reveled  in  it,  winking,  laughing,  playing  a  kind 
of  game  in  which  light  chased  light  through  the  deeps  of 
color. 

The  oddity  of  the  feminine  passion  for  precious  stones  struck 
Davidge  sharply.  The  man  who  built  iron  ships  to  carry 
freight  wondered  at  the  curious  industry  of  those  who  sought 
out  pebbles  of  price,  and  polished  them,  shaped  them,  faceted 
them,  and  fastened  them  in  metals  of  studied  design,  petrified 
jellies  that  seemed  to  quiver  yet  defied  steel. 

He  contrasted  the  cranes  that  would  lift  a  locomotive  and 
lower  it  into  the  hold  of  one  of  his  ships  with  the  tiny  pincers 
with  which  a  lapidary  picked  up  a  diamond  fleck  and  sealed 

17 


256  THE    CUP   OF    FURY 

it  in  platinum.  He  contrasted  the  pneumatic  riveter  with 
the  tiny  hammers  of  the  goldsmith.  There  seemed  to  be  no 
less  vanity  about  one  than  the  other.  The  work  of  the  jeweler 
would  outlast  the  iron  hull.  A  diamond  as  large  as  a  rivet- 
head  would  cost  far  more  than  a  ship.  Jewels,  like  sonnets 
and  symphonies  and  flower-gardens,  were  good  for  nothing, 
yet  somehow  worth  more  than  anything  useful. 

He  wondered  what  the  future  would  do  to  these  arts  and 
their  patronesses.  The  one  business  of  the  world  now  was 
the  manufacture,  transportation,  and  efficient  delivery  of 
explosives. 

He  could  understand  how  offensive  bejeweled  and  banqueted 
people  were  to  the  humble,  who  went  grimy  and  weary  in 
dirty  overalls  over  their  plain  clothes  to  their  ugly  factories 
and  back  to  their  uglier  homes. 

It  was  a  consummation  devoutly  to  be  wished  that  nobody 
should  spend  his  life  or  hers  soiled  and  tired  and  fagged  with 
a  monotonous  task.  It  seemed  hard  that  the  toiling  woman 
and  the  wife  and  daughter  of  the  toiler  might  not  alleviate 
their  bleak  persons  with  pearl  necklaces  about  their  throats, 
with  rubies  pendant  from  their  ears,  and  their  fingers  studded 
with  sapphire  and  topaz. 

Yet  it  did  not  look  possible,  somehow.  And  it  seemed 
better  that  a  few  should  have  them  rather  than  none  at  all, 
better  that  beauty  should  be  allowed  to  reign  somewhere  than 
nowhere  during  its  brief  perfection. 

And  after  all,  what  proof  was  there  that  the  spoliation  of 
the  rich  and  the  ending  of  riches  would  mean  the  enrichment 
of  the  poor?  When  panics  came  and  the  rich  fasted  the  poor 
starved.  Would  the  reduction  of  the  opulent  and  the  eleva 
tion  of  the  paupers  all  to  the  same  plain  average  make  any 
body  happier?  Would  the  poor  be  glad  to  learn  that  they 
could  never  be  rich?  With  nobody  to  envy,  would  content 
ment  set  in?  With  ambition  rated  as  a  crime,  the  bequeath 
ing  of  comfort  to  one's  children  rendered  impossible,  the  estab 
lishment  of  one's  destiny  left  to  the  decision  of  boards  and 
by-laws,  would  there  be  satisfaction?  The  Bolsheviki  had 
voted  "universal  happiness."  It  would  be  interesting  to  see 
how  well  Russia  fared  during  the  next  year  and  how  univer 
sally  happiness  might  be  distributed. 

He  frowned  and  shook  his  head  as  if  to  free  himself  from 


THE    CUP   OF    FURY  257 

these  nettlesome  riddles  and  left  them  to  the  Bolshevist 
Samaritans  to  solve  in  the  vast  laboratory  where  the  manual 
laborers  at  last  could  work  out  their  hearts'  desires,  with  the 
upper  class  destroyed  and  the  even  more  hateful  middle  class 
at  their  mercy. 

It  was  bitter  cold  on  the  way  to  the  ballroom  in  the  Willard 
Hotel,  and  Davidge  in  his  big  coat  studied  Mamise  smothered 
in  a  voluminous  sealskin  overcoat.  This,  too,  had  meant  hard 
ship  for  the  poor.  Many  men  had  sailed  on  a  bitter  voyage 
to  arctic  regions  and  endured  every  privation  of  cold  and 
hunger  and  peril  that  this  young  woman  might  ride  cozy  in 
any  chill  soever.  The  fur  coat  had  cost  much  money,  but 
little  of  it  had  fallen  into  the  frosted  hands  of  the  men  who 
clubbed  the  seal  to  death  on  the  ice-floes.  The  sleek  furrier 
in  the  warm  city  shop,  when  he  sold  the  finished  garment,  took 
in  far  more  than  the  men  who  went  out  into  the  wilderness 
and  brought  back  the  pelts.  That  did  not  seem  right;  yet 
he  had  a  heavy  rent  to  pay,  and  if  he  did  not  create  the  market 
for  the  furs,  the  sealers  would  not  get  paid  at  all  for  their 
voyage. 

A  division  of  the  spoils  that  would  rob  no  one,  nor  kill  the 
industry,  was  beyond  Davidge's  imagining.  He  comforted 
himself  with  the  thought  that  those  loud  mouths  that  adver 
tised  solutions  of  these  labor  problems  were  fools  or  liars  or 
both;  and  their  mouths  were  the  tools  they  worked  with  most. 

The  important  immediate  thing  to  contemplate  was  the 
fascinating  head  of  Mamise,  quaintly  set  on  the  shapeless  bulk 
of  a  sea-lion. 


CHAPTER  III 

"T^vAVIDGE  had  been  a  good  dancer  once,  and  he  had  not 
I  J  entirely  neglected  the  new  school  of  foot  improvisation, 
so  different  from  the  old  set  steps. 

Mamise  was  amazed  to  find  that  the  strenuous  business  man 
had  so  much  of  the  faun  in  his  soul.  He  had  evidently  listened 
to  the  pipes  of  Pan  and  could  "shake  a  sugar-heel"  with  a 
practised  skill.  There  was  a  startling  authority  in  the 
firmness  with  which  he  gathered  her  in  and  swept  her  through 
the  kaleidoscopic  throng,  now  dipping,  now  skipping,  now 
limping,  now  running. 

He  gripped  the  savory  body  of  Mamise  close  to  him  and 
found  her  to  his  whim,  foreseeing  it  with  a  mysterious  pres 
cience.  Holding  her  thus  intimately  in  the  brief  wedlock 
of  the  dance,  he  began  to  love  her  in  a  way  that  he  could 
think  of  only  one  word  for — terrible. 

She  seemed  to  grow  afraid,  too,  of  the  spell  that  was  be 
fogging  them,  and  sought  rescue  in  a  flippancy.  There  was 
also  a  flattering  spice  of  jealousy  in  what  she  murmured: 

"You  haven't  spent  all  your  afternoons  and  evenings 
building  ships,  young  man !" 

"No?" 

"What  cabarets  have  you  graduated  from?" 

He  quoted  her  own  words,  "Don't  you  wish  you  knew?" 

"No." 

"One  thing  is  certain.  I've  never  found  in  any  of  'em  as 
light  a  feather  as  you." 

"Are  you  referring  to  my  head  or  my  feet  ?" 

"Your  blessed  feet!" 

His  arm  about  her  tightened  to  a  suffocation,  and  he 
whirled  her  in  a  delirium  of  motion. 

"That's  unfair!"  she  protested,  affrighted  yet  delighted  by 
the  fire  of  his  ecstasy  in  their  union.  The  music  stopped,  and 
she  clung  to  him  dizzily  while  he  applauded  with  the  other 


THE    CUP   OF    FURY  259 

dancers  till  the  band  renewed  the  tune.  She  had  regained  her 
mental  with  her  bodily  equilibrium,  and  she  danced  more 
staidly ;  yet  she  had  seen  into  the  crater  of  his  heart  and  was 
not  sorry  that  it  existed. 

The  reprise  of  the  dance  was  brief,  and  he  had  to  surrender 
her  from  his  embrace.  He  was  unwontedly  rhapsodic.  "I 
wish  we  could  sail  on  and  on  and  on  forever." 

"Forever  is  a  long  time,"  she  smiled. 

"May  I  have  the  next  dance?" 

"  Certainly  not !  Take  Polly  round  and  pay  for  your  supper. 
But  don't—" 

"Don't  what?" 

"I  don't  know." 

Polly  was  taken  for  the  next  dance,  and  he  was  glad  of 
it,  but  he  suffered  at  seeing  how  perfectly  Mamise  footed  it 
with  a  young  officer  who  also  knew  how  to  compel  her  to  his 
whim.  Davidge  wondered  if  Mamise  could  be  responding  to 
this  fellow  as  keenly  as  she  responded  to  himself.  The  thought 
was  intolerable.  She  could  not  be  so  wanton.  It  would 
amount  to  a  hideous  infidelity.  Moorish  jealousy  smoldered 
in  his  heart,  and  he  cursed  public  dancing  as  an  infamous,  an 
unbelievable  promiscuity.  Yet  when  he  had  Polly  Widdi- 
combe  for  the  next  dance,  her  husband  had  no  cause  for 
jealousy.  Polly  was  a  temperate  dancer,  all  gaiety,  estheti- 
cism  plus  athleticism. 

Davidge  kept  twisting  his  head  about  to  see  how  Mamise 
comported  herself.  He  was  being  swiftly  wrung  to  that 
desperate  condition  in  which  men  are  made  ready  to  commit 
monogamy.  He  felt  that  he  could  not  endure  to  have  Mamise 
free  any  longer. 

He  presented  himself  to  her  for  the  next  dance. 

She  laughed.     "I'm  booked." 

He  blanched  at  the  treacherous  heartlessness  and  sat  the 
dance  out — stood  it  out,  rather,  among  the  superfluous  men 
on  the  side-lines.  A  morose  and  ridiculous  gloom  possessed 
him  at  seeing  still  a  fourth  stranger  with  his  arms  about 
Mamise,  her  breast  to  his  and  her  procedure  obedient  to  his. 
Worse  yet,  when  a  fifth  insolent  stranger  cut  in  on  the  twin 
stars,  Mamise  abandoned  her  fourth  temporary  husband  for 
another  with  a  levity  that  amounted  to  outrageous  polyandry. 
Davidge  felt  no  impulse  to  cut  in.  He  disliked  dancing  so 


260  THE   CUP   OF   FURY 

intensely  that  he  wanted  to  put  an  end  to  the  abomination, 
reform  it  altogether.  He  did  not  want  to  dance  between  those 
white  arms  so  easily  forsworn.  He  wanted  to  rescue  Mamise 
from  this  place  of  horror  and  hale  her  away  to  a  cave  with  no 
outlook  on  mankind. 

It  was  she  who  sought  him  where  he  glowered.  Perhaps  she 
understood  him.  If  she  did,  she  was  wise  enough  to  enjoy  the 
proof  of  her  sway  over  him  and  still  sane  enough  to  take  a  joy 
in  her  triumph. 

She  introduced  her  partner — David  ge  would  almost  have 
called  the  brute  a  paramour.  He  did  not  get  the  man's  name 
and  was  glad  of  it — especially  as  the  hunter  deserted  her  and 
went  after  his  next  Sabine. 

"You've  lost  your  faithful  stenographer,"  was  the  first 
phrase  of  Mamise's  that  Davidge  understood. 

"Why  so?"  he  grumbled. 

"Because  this  is  the  life  for  me.  I've  been  a  heroine  and 
a  war-worker  about  as  long  as  I  can.  I'm  for  the  fleshpots  and 
the  cold-cream  jars  and  the  light  fantastic.  Aren't  you  going 
to  dance  with  me  any  more?" 

"Just  as  you  please,"  Davidge  said,  with  a  singularly  boyish 
sulkiness,  and  wondered  why  Mamise  laughed  so  mercilessly: 

"Of  course  I  please." 

The  music  struck  up  an  abandoned  jig,  but  he  danced  with 
great  dignity  till  his  feet  ran  away  with  him.  Then  he  made 
off  with  her  again  in  one  of  his  frenzies,  and  a  laughter  filled 
his  whole  being. 

She  heard  him  growl  something. 

"What  did  you  say?"  she  said. 

"I  said,  'Damn  you!'" 

She  laughed  so  heartily  at  this  that  she  had  to  stop  dancing 
for  a  moment.  She  astonished  him  by  a  brazen  question: 

"Do  you  really  love  me  as  much  as  that?" 

"More,"  he  groaned,  and  they  bobbed  and  ducked  and 
skipped  as  he  muttered  a  wild  anachronism: 

"If  you  don't  marry  me  I'll  murder  you." 

"You're  murdering  me  now.     May  I  breathe,  please?" 

He  was  furious  at  her  evasion  of  so  solemn  a  proposal. 
Yet  she  was  so  beautifully  alive  and  aglow  that  he  could  not 
exactly  hate  her.  But  he  said: 

"I  won't  ask  you  again.     Next  time  you  can  ask  me." 


THE    CUP   OF    FURY  261 

"All  right;   that's  a  bet.     I'll  give  you  fair  warning." 

And  then  that  dance  was  over,  and  Mamise  triumphant  in 
all  things.  She  was  tumultuously  hale  and  happy,  and  her 
lover  loved  her. 

To  her  that  hath — for  now,  whom  should  Mamise  see  but 
Lady  Clif ton-Wyatt  ?  Her  heart  ached  with  a  reminiscent  fear 
for  a  moment;  then  a  malicious  hope  set  it  going  again. 
Major  Widdicombe  claimed  Mamise  for  the  next  dance,  and 
extracted  her  from  Davidge's  possession.  As  they  danced 
out,  leaving  Davidge  stranded,  Mamise  noted  that  Lady 
C.-W.  was  regarding  Davidge  with  a  startled  interest. 

The  whirl  of  the  dance  carried  her  close  to  Lady  Clifton- 
Wyatt,  and  she  knew  that  Lady  C.-W.  had  seen  her.  Broken 
glimpses  revealed  to  her  that  Lady  C.-W.  was  escorting  her 
escort  across  the  ballroom  floor  toward  Davidge. 

She  saw  the  brazen  creature  tap  Davidge's  elbow  and 
smile,  putting  out  her  hand  with  coquetry.  She  saw  her 
debarrass  herself  of  her  companion,  a  French  officer  whose 
exquisite  horizon-blue  uniform  was  amazingly  crossed  with  the 
wound  and  service  chevrons  of  three  years'  warfaring.  Never 
theless,  Lady  Clifton- Wyatt  dropped  him  for  the  civilian 
Davidge.  Mamise,  flitting  here  and  there,  saw  that  Davidge 
was  being  led  to  the  punch-altar,  thence  to  a  lonely  strip  of 
chairs,  where  Lady  C.-W.  sat  herself  down  and  motioned 
him  to  drop  anchor  alongside. 

Mamise  longed  to  be  near  enough  to  hear  what  she  could 
guess :  her  enemy's  artless  prelude  followed  by  gradual  modu 
lations  to  her  main  theme — Mamise's  wicked  record. 

Mamise  wished  that  she  had  studied  lip-reading  to  get  the 
details.  But  this  was  a  slight  vexation  in  the  exultance  of  her 
mood.  She  was  serene  in  the  consciousness  that  Davidge 
already  knew  the  facts  about  her,  and  that  Lady  Clifton- 
Wyatt's  gossip  would  fall  with  the  dreary  thud  of  a  story 
heard  before.  So  Mamise's  feet  flew,  and  her  heart  made  a 
music  of  its  own  to  the  tune  of: 

"Thank  God,  I  told  him!" 

She  realized,  as  never  before,  the  tremendous  comfort  and 
convenience  of  the  truth.  She  had  been  by  instinct  as  vera 
cious  as  a  politely  bred  person  may  be,  but  now  she  under 
stood  that  the  truth  is  mighty  good  business.  She  resolved 
to  deal  in  no  other  wares. 


262  THE   CUP   OF    FURY 

This  resolution  lasted  just  long  enough  for  her  to  make  a 
hasty  exception:  she  would  begin  her  exclusive  use  of  the 
truth  as  soon  as  she  had  told  Polly  a  neat  lie  in  explanation 
of  her  inexplicable  journey  to  Baltimore. 

Lady  C.-W.  was  doing  Mamise  the  best  turn  in  her  power. 
Davidge  was  still  angry  at  Mamise's  flippancy  in  the  face  of 
his  ardor.  But  Lady  C.-W.'s  attack  gave  the  flirt  the  dignity 
of  martyrdom.  When  Lady  C.-W.  finished  her  subtly  casual 
account  of  all  that  Mamise  had  done  or  been  accused  of  doing, 
Davidge  crushed  her  with  the  quiet  remark : 

"So  she  told  me." 

"She  told  you  that!" 

"Yes,  and  explained  it  all!" 

"She  would!"  was  the  best  that  Lady  Clifton-Wyatt  could 
do,  but  she  saw  that  the  case  was  lost.  She  saw  that  Davidge's 
gaze  was  following  Mamise  here  and  there  amid  the  dancers, 
and  she  was  sportswoman  enough  to  concede: 

"She  is  a  beauty,  anyway — there's  no  questioning  that,  at 
least." 

It  was  the  canniest  thing  she  could  have  done  to  re-establish 
herself  in  Davidge's  eyes.  He  felt  so  well  reconciled  with  the 
world  that  he  said: 

"You  wouldn't  care  to  finish  this  dance,  I  suppose?" 

"Why  not?" 

Lady  Clifton-Wyatt  was  democratic — in  the  provinces  and 
the  States — and  this  was  as  good  a  way  of  changing  the  sub 
ject  as  any.  She  rose  promptly  and  entered  the  bosom  of 
Davidge.  The  good  American  who  did  not  believe  in  aris 
tocracies  had  just  time  to  be  overawed  at  rinding  himself 
hugging  a  real  Lady  with  a  capital  L  when  the  music  stopped. 

It  is  an  old  saw  that  what  is  too  foolish  to  be  said  can  be 
sung.  Music  hallows  or  denatures  whatever  it  touches.  It 
was  quite  proper,  because  quite  customary,  for  Davidge  and 
Lady  Clifton-Wyatt  to  stand  enfolded  in  each  other's  em 
brace  so  long  as  a  dance  tune  was  in  the  air.  The  moment 
the  musicians  quit  work  the  attitude  became  indecent. 

Amazing  and  eternal  mystery,  that  custom  can  make  the 
same  thing  mean  everything,  or  nothing,  or  all  the  between- 
things.  The  ancient  Babylonians  carried  the  idea  of  the  per 
missible  embrace  to  the  ultimate  intimacy  in  their  annual 
festivals,  and  the  good  women  doubtless  thought  no  more  of  it 


THE   CUP   OF   FURY  263 

than  a  woman  of  to-day  thinks  of  waltzing  with  a  presentable 
stranger.  They  went  home  to  their  husbands  and  their  house 
work  as  if  they  had  been  to  church.  Certain  Bolsheviki, 
even  in  the  year  1918,  put  up  placards  renewing  the  ancient 
Mesopotamian  custom,  under  the  guise  of  a  community 
privilege  and  a  civic  duty. 

And  yet  some  people  pretend  to  differentiate  between 
fashions  and  morals! 

But  nobody  at  this  dance  was  foolish  enough  to  philosophize. 
Everybody  was  out  for  a  good  time,  and  a  Scotsman  from 
the  British  embassy  came  up  to  claim  Lady  Clifton-Wyatt's 
hand  and  body  for  the  next  dance.  Davidge  had  been  mys 
tically  attuned  anew  to  Mamise,  and  he  found  her  in  a  mood 
for  reconciliation.  She  liked  him  so  well  that  when  the 
Italian  aviator  to  whom  she  had  pledged  the  "Tickle  Toe" 
came  to  demand  it,  she  perjured  herself  calmly  and  eloped 
with  Davidge.  And  Davidge,  instead  of  being  alarmed  by 
her  easy  morals,  was  completely  reassured. 

But  he  found  her  unready  with  another  perjury  when  he 
abruptly  asked  her: 

"What  are  you  doing  to-morrow?" 

"Let  me  see,"  she  temporized  in  a  flutter,  thinking  of 
Baltimore  and  Nicky. 

"If  you've  nothing  special  on,  how  about  a  tea-dance? 
I'm  getting  addicted  to  this."  * 

"I'm  afraid  I'm  booked  up  for  to-morrow,"  she  faltered. 
"  Polly  keeps  the  calendar.  Yes,  I  know  we  have  some  stupid 
date — I  can't  think  just  what.  How  about  the  day  after?" 

The  deferment  made  his  amorous  heart  sick,  and  to-mor 
row's  to-morrow  seemed  as  remote  as  Judgment  Day.  Be 
sides,  as  he  explained: 

"I've  got  to  go  back  to  the  shipyard  to-morrow  evening. 
Couldn't  you  give  me  a  lunch — an  early  one  at  twelve-thirty?" 

"Yes,  I  could  do  that,     In  fact,  I'd  love  it!" 

"And  me  too?" 

"That  would  be  telling." 

At  this  delicious  moment  an  insolent  cub  in  boots  and  spurs 
cut  in  and  would  not  be  denied.  Davidge  was  tempted  to 
use  his  fists,  but  Mamise,  though  she  longed  to  tarry  with 
Davidge,  knew  the  value  of  tantalism,  and  consented  to  the 
abduction.  For  revenge  Davidge  took  up  with  Polly  and 


264  THE   CUP   OF   FURY 

danced  after  Mamise,  to  be  near  her.  He  followed  so  close 
that  the  disastrous  cub,  in  a  sudden  pirouette,  contrived  to 
swipe  Polly  across  the  shin  and  ankle-bones  with  his  spur. 

She  almost  swooned  of  agony,  and  clung  to  Davidge  for 
support,  mixing  astonishing  profanity  with  her  smothered 
groans.  The  cub  showered  apologies  on  her,  and  reviled 
"Regulations"  which  compelled  him  to  wear  spurs  with  his 
boots,  though  he  had  only  a  desk  job. 

Polly  smiled  at  him  murderously,  and  said  it  was  nothing. 
But  Mamise  saw  her  distress,  rid  herself  of  the  hapless  criminal 
and  gave  Polly  her  arm,  as  she  limped  through  the  barrage  of 
hurtling  couples.  Polly  asked  Davidge  to  retrieve  her  hus 
band  from  the  sloe-eyed  ambassadress  who  was  hypnotizing 
him.  She  wailed  to  Mamise: 

"I  know  I'm  marked  for  life.  I  ought  to  have  a  wound- 
chevron  for  this.  I've  got  to  go  home  and  put  my  ankle  in 
splints.  I'll  probably  have  to  wear  it  in  a  sling  for  a  month. 
I'd  like  to  kill  the  rotten  hound  that  put  me  out  of  business. 
And  I  had  the  next  dance  with  that  beautiful  Rumanian 
devil!  You  stay  and  dance  with  your  ship-builder!" 

Mamise  could  not  even  think  of  it,  and  insisted  on  bidding 
good  night  to  the  crestfallen  Davidge.  He  offered  to  ride 
out  home  with  her,  but  Polly  refused.  She  wanted  to  have  a 
good  cry  in  the  car. 

Davidge  bade  Mamise  good  night,  reminded  her  that  she 
was  plighted  to  luncheon  at  twelve-thirty,  and  went  to  the 
house  of  the  friend  he  was  stopping  with,  the  hotels  being 
booked  solid  for  weeks  ahead.  He  was  nursing  a  stern  de 
termination  to  endure  bachelordom  no  longer. 

Mamise  was  thinking  of  Davidge  tenderly  with  one  of  her 
brains,  while  another  segment  condoled  with  Polly.  But 
most  of  her  wits  were  engaged  in  hunting  a  good  excuse  for 
her  Baltimore  escapade  the  next  afternoon,  and  in  discard 
ing  such  implausible  excuses  as  occurred  to  her. 

Bitter  chill  it  was,  and  these  owls,  for  all  their  feathers,  were 
a-cold.  Major  Widdicombe  was  chattering. 

"I  danced  myself  into  a  sweat,  and  now  my  undershirt  is 
all  icicles.  I  know  I'll  die  of  pneumonia." 

He  shifted  his  foot,  and  one  of  his  spurs  grazed  the  ankle 
of  Polly,  who  was  snuggling  to  him  for  warmth. 


THE    CUP   OF    FURY  265 

She  yowled:  "My  Gawd!  My  yankle!  You'll  not  last 
long  enough  for  pneumonia  if  you  touch  me  again." 

He  was  filled  with  remorse,  but  when  he  tried  to  reach 
round  to  embrace  her,  she  would  none  of  him. 

When  they  got  to  the  bridge,  they  were  amazed  at  the  lazy 
old  Potomac.  It  was  a  white  torment  of  broken  ice,  roaring 
and  slashing  and  battering  the  piers  of  the  ancient  bridge  omi 
nously,  huge  sheets  clambering  up  and  falling  back  split  and 
broken,  with  the  uproar  of  an  attack  on  a  walled  town. 

The  chauffeur  went  to  full  speed,  and  the  frosty  boards 
shrilled  under  the  flight. 

The  house  was  cold  when  they  reached  it,  and  Mamise's 
room  was  like  a  storage-vault.  She  tore  off  her  light  dancing- 
dress  and  shivered  as  she  stripped  and  took  refuge  in  a  cob 
webby  nightgown.  She  threw  on  a  heavy  bathrobe  and  kept 
it  on  when  she  crept  into  the  icy  interstice  between  the  all- 
too-snowy  sheets. 

She  had  forgotten  to  explain  to  Polly  about  her  Baltimore 
venture,  and  she  shivered  so  vigorously  that  sleep  was  im 
possible  to  her  palsied  bones.  She  grew  no  warmer  from 
besetting  visions  of  the  battle-front.  She  tried  to  shame 
herself  out  of  her  chill  by  contrasting  her  opulent  bed  with 
the  dreadful  dugouts  in  France,  the  observation  posts,  the 
shell-riddled  ruins,  where  millions  somehow  existed.  Again, 
as  at  Valley  Forge,  American  soldiers  were  marching  there  in 
the  snow  barefooted,  or  in  rags  or  in  wooden  sabots,  for  lack 
of  ships  to  get  new  shoes  across. 

Yet,  in  these  frozen  hells  there  were  not  men  enough.  The 
German  offensive  must  not  find  the  lines  so  sparsely  defended. 
Men  must  be  combed  out  of  every  cranny  of  the  nations  and 
herded  to  the  slaughter.  America  was  denying  herself  warmth 
in  order  to  build  shells  and  to  shuttle  the  ships  back  and  forth. 
There  was  need  of  more  women,  too — thousands  more  to  nurse 
the  men,  to  run  the  canteens,  to  mend  the  clothes,  to  warm 
men's  hearts  via  their  stomachs,  and  to  take  their  minds  off 
the  madness  of  war  a  little  while.  The  Salvation  Army  would 
furnish  them  hot  doughnuts  in  the  trenches  and  heat  up  their 
courage.  Actors  and  actresses  were  playing  at  all  the  big 
cantonments  now.  Later  they  would  be  going  across  to  play 
in  France — one-night  stands,  two  a  day  in  Picardy. 

Suddenly  Mamise  felt  the  need  to  go  abroad.     In  a  kind  of 


266  THE    CUP   OF    FURY 

burlesque  of  the  calling  of  the  infant  Samuel,  she  sat  up  in 
her  bed,  startled  as  by  a  voice  calling  her  to  a  mission.  She 
had  been  an  actress,  a  wanderer,  a  performer  in  cheap  theaters, 
a  catcher  of  late  trains,  a  dweller  in  rickety  hotels.  She 
knew  cold,  and  she  had  played  half  clad  in  draughty  halls. 

She  had  escaped  from  the  life  and  had  tried  to  escape  the 
memory  of  it.  But  now  that  she  was  so  cold  she  felt  that 
nothing  was  so  pitiful  as  to  be  cold.  She  understood,  with  a 
congealing  vividness,  how  those  poor  droves  of  lads  in  bitterer 
cold  were  suffering,  scattered  along  the  frontiers  of  war  like 
infinite  flocks  of  sheep  caught  in  a  blizzard.  She  felt  ashamed 
to  be  here  shivering  in  this  palatial  misery  when  she  might 
be  sharing  the  all-but-unbearable  squalor  of  the  soldiers. 

The  more  she  recoiled  from  the  hardships  the  more  she 
felt  the  impulse.  It  would  be  her  atonement. 

She  would  buy  a  trombone  and  retire  into  the  wilderness 
to  practise  it.  She  would  lay  her  dignity,  her  aristocracy,  her 
pride,  on  the  altar  of  sacrifice,  and  go  among  the  despondent 
soldiers  as  a  Sister  of  Gaiety.  Perhaps  Bill  the  Blackface- 
man  would  be  going  over — if  he  had  not  stayed  in  Germany 
too  long  and  been  interned  there.  To  return  to  the  team  with 
him,  being  the  final  degradation,  would  be  the  final  atone 
ment.  She  felt  that  she  was  called,  called  back.  There  could 
be  nothing  else  she  would  hate  more  to  do ;  therefore  she  would 
love  to  do  that  most  of  all. 

She  would  lunch  with  Davidge  to-morrow,  tell  him  her 
plan,  bid  him  farewell,  go  to  Baltimore,  learn  Nicky's  secret, 
thwart  it  one  way  or  another — and  then  set  about  her  destiny. 

She  abhorred  the  relapse  so  utterly  that  she  wept.  The 
warm  tears  refreshed  her  eyes  before  they  froze  on  her  cheeks, 
and  she  fell  asleep  in  the  blissful  assurance  of  a  martyrdom. 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE  next  morning  Mamise  woke  in  her  self -warmed  bed, 
at  the  nudge  of  a  colored  maid  bundled  up  like  an  Eskimo, 
who  carried  a  breakfast-tray  in  mittened  hands. 

Mamise  said:  "Oh,  good  morning,  Martha.  I'll  bathe 
before  breakfast  if  you'll  turn  on  the  hot  water,  please." 

"Hot  water?  Humph!  Pipes  done  froze  last  night,  an* 
bus'  loose  this  mo'nin',  and  fill  the  kitchen  range  with  water 
an'  bus'  loose  again.  No  plumber  here  yit.  Made  this 
breakfuss  on  the  gas-stove.  That's  half -froze,  tew.  I  tell 
you,  ma'am,  you're  lucky  to  git  your  coffee  nohow.  Better 
take  it  before  it  freezes,  tew." 

Mamise  sighed  and  glanced  at  the  clock.  The  reproachful 
hands  stood  at  eleven-thirty. 

"Did  the  clock  freeze,  too?  That  can't  be  the  right 
time!" 

"Yessum,  that's  the  raht  tahm." 

"Great  heavens!" 

"Yes,  ma'am." 

Mamise  sat  up,  drew  the  comforters  about  her  back,  and 
breakfasted  with  speed.  She  dressed  with  all  the  agility  she 
could  muster. 

She  regretted  the  bath.  She  missed  it,  and  so  must  we  all. 
In  modern  history,  as  in  modern  fiction,  it  is  not  nice  in  the 
least  for  the  heroine — even  such  a  dubious  heroine  as  Mamise — 
to  have  a  bathless  day.  As  for  heroes,  in  the  polite  chronicles 
they  get  at  least  two  baths  a  day:  one  heroic  cold  shower  in 
the  morning  and  one  hot  tub  in  the  late  afternoon  before 
getting  into  the  faultless  evening  attire.  This  does  not  apply 
to  heroes  of  Russian  masterpieces,  of  course,  for  they  never 
bathe.  ("Why  should  they,"  my  wife  puts  in,  "since  they're 
going  to  commit  suicide,  anyway?") 

But  the  horrors  of  the  Great  War  included  this  atrocity, 


268  THE   CUP   OF    FURY 

that  the  very  politest  people  came  to  know  the  old-fashioned 
luxury  of  an  extra-dry  life.  There  was  a  time  when  cleanliness 
was  accounted  as  ungodliness  and  the  Christian  saints  anathe 
matized  the  bath  as  an  Oriental  pollution.  During  our  war 
of  wars  there  was  a  vast  amount  of  helpless  holy  living. 

Exquisite  gentlemen  kept  to  their  clothes  for  weeks  at  a 
time  and  grew  rancid  and  lousy  among  the  rats  that  were 
foul  enough  to  share  their  stinking  dens  with  them.  If  these 
gentlemen  were  wounded,  perchance,  they  added  stale  blood, 
putrefaction,  and  offal  to  their  abominable  fetor. 

And  women  who  had  been  pretty  and  soapy  and  without 
smell,  and  who  had  once  blanched  with  shame  at  the  least 
maculation,  lived  with  these  slovenly  men  and  vermin  and 
dead  horses  and  old  dead  soldiers  and  shared  their  glorious 
loathsomeness. 

The  world  acquired  a  strong  stomach,  and  Mamise's  one 
skip-bath  day  must  be  endured.  If  the  indecency  ever  oc 
curred  again  it  will  be  left  unmentioned.  Heaven  knows 
that  even  this  morning  she  looked  pure  enough  when  she  was 
dressed. 

Mamise  found  that  Polly  was  still  in  bed,  giving  her  damaged 
ankle  as  an  excuse.  She  stuck  it  out  for  Mamise's  inspection, 
and  Mamise  pretended  to  be  appalled  at  the  bruise  she  could 
almost  see. 

Mamise  remembered  her  plan  to  go  abroad  and  entertain 
the  soldiers.  Polly  tried  to  dissuade  her  from  an  even  crazier 
scheme  than  ship-building,  but  ended  by  promising  to  telephone 
her  husband  to  look  into  the  matter  of  a  passport  for  her. 

Despite  her  best  efforts,  it  was  already  twelve-thirty  and 
Mamise  had  not  left  the  house.  She  was  afraid  that  Davidge 
would  be  miffed.  Polly  suggested  telephoning  the  hotel. 

Those  were  bad  days  for  telephoners.  The  wires  were  as 
crowded  as  everything  else. 

"It  will  take  an  hour  to  get  the  hotel,"  said  Mamise, 
"another  hour  to  page  the  man.  I'll  make  a  dash  for  it. 
He'll  give  me  a  little  grace,  I  know." 

The  car  was  not  ready  when  she  got  to  the  door.  The 
engine  was  balky  and  bucky  with  the  cold,  and  the  chauf 
feur  in  a  like  mood.  The  roads  were  sleety  and  skiddy,  and 
required  careful  driving. 

Best  of  all,  when  she  reached  the  bridge  at  last,  she  found 


THE    CUP   OF    FURY  269 

it  closed  to  traffic.  The  Potomac  had  been  infected  by  the  war 
spirit.  In  sheer  Hunnishness  it  had  ravaged  its  banks,  shear 
ing  away  boat-houses  and  piers,  and  carrying  all  manner  of 
wreckage  down  to  pound  the  old  aqueduct  bridge  with. 
The  bridge  was  not  expected  to  live. 

It  did,  but  it  was  not  intrusted  with  traffic  till  long  after  the 
distraught  Mamise  had  been  told  that  the  only  way  to  get 
to  Washin  ton  was  by  the  Highway  Bridge  from  Alexandria, 
and  this  meant  a  de"tour  of  miles.  It  gave  Mamise  her  first 
and  only  grand  rounds  through  Fort  Myer  and  the  Arlington 
National  Cemetery.  She  felt  sorry  for  the  soldiers  about  the 
cold  barracks,  but  she  was  in  no  mood  to  respond  to  the 
marble  pages  of  the  Arlington  epic. 

The  night  before  she  had  beheld  in  a  clear  vision  the  living 
hosts  in  Flanders  and  France,  but  here  under  the  snow  lay 
sixteen  thousand  dead,  two  thousand  a  hundred  and  eleven 
heroes  under  one  monument  of  eternal  anonymity — dead 
from  all  our  wars,  and  many  of  them  with  their  wives  and 
daughters  privileged  to  lie  beside  them. 

But  the  mood  is  everything,  and  Mamise  was  too  fretful 
to  rise  to  this  occasion;  and  when  her  car  had  crept  the 
uneasy  miles  and  reached  the  Alexandria  bridge  and  crossed 
it,  and  wound  through  Potomac  Park,  past  the  Washington 
Monument  standing  like  a  stupendous  icicle,  and  reached 
the  hotel,  she  was  just  one  hour  late. 

Davidge  had  given  her  up  in  disgust  and  despair,  after 
vain  efforts  to  reach  her  at  various  other  possible  luncheon- 
places.  He  searched  them  all  on  the  chance  that  she  might 
have  misunderstood  the  rendezvous.  And  Mamise  spent  a 
frantic  hour  trying  to  find  him  at  some  hotel.  He  had 
registered  nowhere,  since  a  friend  had  put  him  up.  The  sole 
result  of  this  interesting  game  of  two  needles  hunting  each 
other  through  a  haystack  was  that  Davidge  went  without 
lunch  and  Mamise  ate  alone. 

In  the  late  afternoon  Davidge  made  another  try.  He  finally 
got  Polly  Widdicombe  on  the  telephone  and  asked  for  Mamise. 
Polly  expressed  her  amazement. 

"Why,  she  just  telephoned  that  she  was  staying  in  town  to 
dine  with  you  and  go  to  the  theater." 

"Oh!"  said  the  befuddled  Davidge.  "Oh,  of  course!  Silly 
of  me!  Good-by!" 


27o  THE   CUP   OF   FURY 

Now  he  was  indeed  in  a  mental  mess.  Besides,  he  had 
another  engagement  to  dinner.  He  spent  a  long,  exasperating 
hour  in  a  telephone-chase  after  his  host,  told  a  poor  lie  to 
explain  the  necessity  for  breaking  the  engagement,  and  spent 
the  rest  of  the  evening  hunting  Mamise  in  vain. 

When  he  took  the  train  for  his  shipyard  at  last  he  was  in  a 
hopeless  confusion  between  rage  at  Mamise  and  fear  that  some 
mishap  had  befallen  her.  It  would  have  been  hard  to  tell 
whether  he  loved  her  or  hated  her  the  more. 

But  she,  after  giving  up  the  pursuit  of  him,  had  taken  up 
an  inquiry  into  the  trains  to  Baltimore.  The  time  was  now  too 
short  for  her  to  risk  a  journey  out  to  Grinden  Hall  and  back 
for  a  suit-case,  in  view  of  the  Alexandria  detour.  She  must, 
therefore,  travel  without  baggage.  Therefore  she  must  return 
the  same  night.  She  found,  to  her  immense  relief,  that  this 
could  be  done.  The  seven-o'clock  train  to  Baltimore  reached 
there  at  eight,  and  there  was  a  ten-ten  train  back. 

She  had  not  yet  devised  a  lie  to  appease  Polly  with,  but 
now  an  inspiration  came  to  her.  She  had  told  Davidge  that 
she  was  dining  out  with  Polly  somewhere;  consequently  it 
would  be  safe  to  tell  Polly  that  she  was  dining  out  with 
Davidge  somewhere.  The  two  would  never  meet  to  compare 
notes.  Besides,  it  is  pleasanter  to  lie  by  telephone.  One 
cannot  be  seen  to  blush. 

She  called  up  Grinden  Hall  and  was  luckily  answered  by 
what  Widdicombe  called  "the  ebony  maid  with  the  ivory 
head."  Mamise  told  her  not  to  summon  her  lame  mistress 
to  the  telephone,  but  merely  to  say  that  Miss  Webling  was 
dining  with  Mr.  Davidge  and  going  to  the  theater  with  him. 
She  made  the  maid  repeat  this  till  she  had  it  by  heart,  then 
rang  off. 

This  was  the  message  that  Polly  received  and  later  trans 
mitted  to  Davidge  for  his  bewilderment. 

To  fill  the  hours  that  must  elapse  before  her  train  could 
leave,  Mamise  went  to  one  of  those  moving-picture  shows 
that  keep  going  without  interruption.  Public  benefactors 
maintain  them  for  the  salvation  of  women  who  have  no  homes 
or  do  not  want  to  go  to  them  yet. 

The  moving-picture  service  included  the  usual  news  weekly, 
as  usual  leading  one  to  marvel  why  the  stupid  subjects 
shown  were  selected  from  all  the  fascinating  events  of  the 


THE   CUP   OF   FURY  271 

time.  Then  followed  a  doleful  imitation  of  Mr.  Charles 
Chaplin,  which  proved  by  its  very  fiasco  the  artistry  of  the 
original. 

The  cinema  de  resistance  was  a  long  and  idiotic  vampire 
picture  in  which  a  stodgy  creature  lured  impossible  males  to 
impossible  ruin  by  wiles  and  attitudes  that  would  have  driven 
any  actual  male  to  flight,  laughter,  or  a  call  for  the  police. 
But  the  audience  seemed  to  enjoy  it,  as  a  substitute,  no  doubt, 
for  the  old-fashioned  gruesome  fairy-stories  that  one  accepts 
because  they  are  so  unlike  the  tiresome  realities.  Mamise 
wondered  if  vampirism  really  succeeded  in  life.  She  was 
tempted  to  try  a  little  of  it  some  time,  just  as  an  experiment, 
if  ever  opportunity  offered. 

In  any  case,  the  picture  served  its  main  purpose.  It  whiled 
away  the  dull  afternoon  till  the  dinner  hour.  She  took  her 
dinner  on  the  train,  remembering  vividly  how  her  heart 
history  with  Davidge  had  begun  on  a  train.  She  missed  him 
now,  and  his  self-effacing  gallantry. 

The  man  opposite  her  wanted  to  be  cordial,  but  his  motive 
was  ill  concealed,  and  Mamise  treated  him  as  if  he  didn't 
quite  exist.  Suddenly  she  remembered  with  a  gasp  that  she 
had  never  paid  Davidge  for  that  chair  he  gave  up  to  her. 
She  vowed  again  that  she  would  not  forget.  She  felt  a  deep 
remorse,  too,  for  a  day  of  lies  and  tricks.  She  regretted 
especially  the  necessity  of  deceiving  Davidge.  It  was  her 
privilege  to  hoodwink  Polly  and  other  people,  but  she  had  no 
right  to  deceive  Davidge.  She  was  beginning  to  feel  that  she 
belonged  to  him. 

She  resolved  to  atone  for  these  new  transgressions,  too, 
as  well  as  her  old,  by  getting  over  to  France  as  soon  as  pos 
sible  and  subjecting  herself  to  a  self-immolation  among  hard 
ships.  After  the  war — assuming  that  the  war  would  soon  end 
and  that  she  would  come  out  of  it  alive — afterward  she 
could  settle  down  and  perhaps  marry  Davidge. 

Reveling  in  these  pleasantly  miserable  schemes,  she  was 
startled  to  find  Baltimore  already  gathering  round  the  train. 
And  she  had  not  even  begun  to  organize  her  stratagems 
against  Nicky  Easton.  She  made  a  hasty  exit  from  the  car 
and  sought  the  cab-ranks  outside. 

From  the  shadows  a  shadowy  man  semi-detached  himself, 
lifted  his  hat,  and  motioned  her  to  an  open  door.     She  bent 
18 


272  THE    CUP   OF    FURY 

her  head  down  and  her  knees  up  and  entered  a  little  room 
on  wheels. 

Nicky  had  evidently  given  the  chauffeur  instructions,  for 
as  soon  as  Nicky  had  come  in,  doubled  up,  and  seated  himself 
the  limousine  moved  off — into  what  adventures?  Mamise 
was  wondering. 


BOOK  VI 

IN  -BALTIMORE 


"  Oo  /  have  already  done  something  more  for  Germany. 
*J    That's  splendid.     Now  tell  me  what  else  I  can  do." 
Nicky  was  too  intoxicated  with  his  success  to  see  through 
her  thin  disguise. 


CHAPTER  I 

MAMISE  remembered  her  earlier  visits  to  Baltimore  as  a 
tawdry  young  vaudevillette.  She  had  probably  walked 
from  the  station,  lugging  her  own  valise,  to  some  ghastly 
theatrical  boarding-house.  Perhaps  some  lover  of  hers  had 
carried  her  baggage  for  her.  If  so,  she  had  forgotten  just 
which  one  of  her  experiences  he  was. 

Now  she  hoped  to  be  even  more  obscure  and  unconsidered 
than  she  had  been  then,  when  a  little  attention  was  meat 
and  drink,  and  her  name  in  the  paper  was  a  sensation.  She 
knew  that  publicity,  like  love,  flees  whoso  pursueth  and  pursues 
who  flees  it,  but  she  prayed  that  the  rule  would  be  proved 
by  an  exception  to-night,  and  that  she  might  sneak  out  as 
anonymously  as  she  had  sneaked  in. 

Nicky  Easton  was  a  more  immediate  problem.  He  was 
groping  for  her  hands.  When  he  found  them  she  was  glad 
that  she  had  her  gloves  on.  They  were  chaperoned,  too,  as 
it  were,  by  their  heavy  wraps.  She  was  fairly  lost  in  her  furs 
and  he  in  a  burly  overcoat,  so  that  when  in  a  kind  of  frenzy 
he  thrust  one  cumbrous  arm  about  her  the  insulation  was 
complete.  He  might  as  well  have  been  embracing  the  cab 
she  was  in. 

But  the  insolence  of  the  intention  enraged  her,  and  she 
struggled  against  him  as  a  she-bear  might  rebuff  a  too  familiar 
bruin — buffeted  his  arms  away  and  muttered: 

"You  imbecile!  Do  you  want  me  to  knock  on  the  glass 
and  tell  the  driver  to  let  me  out?" 

"Nein  dock!" 

"Then  let  me  alone  or  I  will." 

Nicky  sighed  abysmally  and  sank  back.  He  said  nothing 
at  all  to  her,  and  she  said  the  same  to  him  while  long  strips 
of  Baltimorean  marble  stoops  went  by.  They  turned  into 
Charles  Street  and  climbed  past  its  statue-haunted  gardens 
and  on  out  to  the  north. 


276  THE    CUP    OF    FURY 

They  were  almost  at  Druid  Hill  Park  before  Mamise  realized 
that  she  was  wasting  her  time  and  her  trip  for  nothing.  She 
spoke  angrily: 

"You  said  you  wanted  to  see  me.     I'm  here." 

Nicky  fidgeted  and  sulked : 

"I  do  not  neet  to  told  you  now.  You  have  such  a  hatink 
from  me,  it  is  no  use." 

"If  you  had  told  me  you  simply  wanted  to  spoon  with 
me  I  could  have  stayed  at  home.  You  said  you  wanted  to 
ask  me  something." 

"I  have  my  enswer.     It  is  not  any  neet  to  esk." 

Mamise  was  puzzled;  her  wrath  was  yielding  to  curiosity. 
But  she  could  not  imagine  how  to  coax  him  out  of  silence. 

His  disappointment  coaxed  him.     He  groaned: 
"Ach  Gott,  I  am  so  lunly.     My  own  people  doand  trust  me. 
These  Yenkees  also  not.     I  get  no  chence  to  proof  how  I  loaf 
my  Voter  land.     But  the  time  comes  soon,  and  I  must  make 
patience.    Eile  mit  Weile!" 

"You'd  better  tell  me  what's  on  your  mind,"  Mamise  sug 
gested,  but  he  shook  his  head.  The  car  rolled  into  the  gloom 
of  the  park,  a  gloom  rather  punctuated  than  diminished  by 
the  street-lamps.  Mamise  realized  that  she  could  not  extort 
Nicky's  secret  from  him  by  asserting  her  own  dignity. 

She  wondered  how  to  persuade  him,  and  found  no  ideas 
except  such  silly  schemes  as  were  suggested  by  her  memory 
of  the  vampire  picture.  She  hated  the  very  passage  of  such 
thoughts  through  her  mind,  but  they  kept  returning,  with 
an  insistent  idea  that  a  patriotic  vampire  might  accomplish 
something  for  her  country  as  Delilah  and  Judith  had  "vamped  " 
for  theirs.  She  had  never  seen  a  vampire  exercise  her  fascina 
tions  in  a  fur  coat  in  a  dark  automobile,  but  perhaps  the  dark 
was  all  the  better  for  her  purpose. 

At  any  rate,  she  took  the  dare  her  wits  presented  her,  and 
after  a  struggle  with  her  own  mutinous  muscles  she  put  out 
her  hand  and  sought  Nicky's,  as  she  cooed : 

"Come  along,  Nicky,  don't  be  so  cantankerous." 

His  hand  registered  the  surprise  he  felt  in  the  fervor  of  its 
clutch : 

"But  you  are  so  colt!" 

She  insinuated,  "You  couldn't  expect  me  to  make  love  to 
you  the  very  first  thing,  could  you?" 


THE    CUP   OF    FURY  277 

"You  mean  you  do  like  me?" 

Her  hands  wringing  his  told  the  lie  her  tongue  refused.  And 
he,  encouraged  and  determined  to  prove  his  rating  with  her, 
flung  his  arm  about  her  again  and  drew  her,  resisting  only 
in  her  soul,  close  to  him. 


CHAPTER  II 

BUT  when  his  lips  hunted  hers  she  hid  them  in  her  fur  collar; 
and  he,  imputing  it  to  coquetry,  humored  her,  finding  her 
delicate  timidity  enhancing  and  inspiring.  He  chuckled : 

"You  shall  kiss  me  yet." 

"Not  till  you  have  told  me  what  you  sent  for  me  for." 

"No,  feerst  you  must  give  me  one  to  proof  your  good  fate — 
your  good  face — "  He  was  trying  to  say  "good  faith." 

She  was  stubborn,  but  he  was  more  obstinate  still,  and  he 
had  the  advantage  of  the  secret. 

And  so  at  last  she  sighed  "All  right,"  and  put  up  her  cheek 
to  pay  the  price.  His  arms  tightened  about  her,  and  his  lips 
were  not  content  with  her  cheek.  He  fought  to  win  her  lips, 
but  she  began  to  tear  off  her  gloves  to  scratch  his  eyes  out 
if  need  be  for  release. 

She  was  revolted,  and  she  would  have  marred  his  beauty  if 
he  had  not  let  her  go.  Once  freed,  she  regained  her  self- 
control,  for  the  sake  of  her  mission,  and  said,  with  a  mock 
seriousness : 

"Now,  be  careful,  or  I  won't  listen  to  you  at  all." 

Sighing  with  disappointment,  but  more  determined  than 
ever  to  make  her  his,  he  said : 

"Feerst  I  must  esk  you,  how  is  your  feelink  about  Cher- 
many?" 

"Just  as  before." 

"Chust  as  vich  'before'?  Do  you  loaf  Chermany  or 
hate?" 

She  was  permitted  to  say  only  one  thing.     It  came  hard: 

"I  love  her,  of  course." 

"Ach,  behut'  dich,  Gott!"  he  cried,  and  would  have  clasped 
her  again,  but  she  insisted  on  discipline.  He  began  his 
explanation. 

"I  did  told  you  how,  to  safe  my  life  in  England,  I  confessed 
somethings.  Many  of  our  people  here  will  not  forgive.  My 


THE    CUP    OF    FURY  279 

only  vay  to  get  back  vere  I  have  been  is  to  make — as  Americans 
say — to  make  myself  skvare  by  to  do  some  big  vork.  I  have 
done  a  little,  not  much,  but  more  can  be  if  you  help." 

"What  could  I  do?" 

"Much  things,  but  the  greatest — listen  once :  our  Chermany 
has  no  fear  of  America  so  long  America  is  on  this  side  of 
the  Atlentic  Ozean.  Americans  build  ships;  Chermany  must 
destroy  fester  as  they  build.  Already  I  have  made  one  ship 
less  for  America.  I  cannot  pooblish  advertising  but  my 
people  shall  one  day  know,  and  that  day  comes  soon;  Der 
Tag  is  almost  here — you  shall  see!  Our  army  grows  alvays, 
in  France;  and  England  and  France  can  get  no  more  men. 
Ven  all  is  ready,  Chermany  moves  like  a — a  avalenche  down 
a  mountain  and  covers  France  to  the  sea. 

"On  that  day  our  fleet — our  glorious  ships — comes  out 
from  Kiel  Canal,  vere  man  holds  them  beck  like  big  dogs  in 
leash.  On  those  beautiful  day,  Chermany  conquers  on  lent 
and  on  sea.  France  dies,  and  England's  navy  goes  down  into 
the  deep  and  comes  never  back. 

"Ach  Gott,  such  a  day  it  shall  be — when  old  England's  em 
pire  goes  into  history,  into  ancient  history  vit  Roossia  and 
Rome  and  Greece  and  Bebylonia. 

"England  gone,  France  gone,  Italy  gone — who  shall  safe 
America  and  her  armies  and  her  unborn  ships,  and  her  cannon 
and  shell  and  air-ships  not  yet  so  much  as  begun? 

"Der  Tag  shall  be  like  the  lest  day  ven  Gott  makes  the 
graves  open  and  the  dead  come  beck  to  life.  The  Americans 
shall  fall  on  knees  before  our  Kaiser,  and  he  shall  render 
chudgment.  Such  a  payink! 

"Now  the  Yenkees  despise  us  Chermans.  Ve  cannot  go  to 
this  city,  to  that  dock.  Everywhere  is  dead-lines  and  per 
missions  and  internment  camps  and  persecutions,  and  all 
who  are  not  in  prison  are  afraid.  They  change  their  names 
from  Cherman  to  English  now,  but  soon  they  shall  lift  their 
heads  and  it  shall  be  the  Americans  who  shall  know  the  dead 
lines,  the  licenses,  the  internment  camps. 

"So,  Marie  Louise,  my  sveetheart,  if  you  can  show  and  I 
can  show  that  in  the  dark  night  ve  did  not  forget  the  Vaterland, 
ve  shall  be  proud  and  safe. 

"It  is  to  make  you  safe  ven  comes  Der  Tag  I  speak  to 
you  now.  I  vish  you  should  share  my  vork  now,  so  you 


280  THE    CUP    OF    FURY 

can  share  my  life  efterwards.  Now  do  I  loaf  you,  Marie 
Louise?  Now  do  I  give  you  proof?" 

Mamise  was  all  ashudder  with  the  intensity  of  his  con 
viction.  She  imagined  an  all-conquering  Germany  in  Amer 
ica.  She  needed  but  to  multiply  the  story  of  Belgium,  of 
Serbia,  of  prostrate  Russia.  The  Kaiser  had  put  in  the  shop- 
window  of  the  world  samples  enough  of  the  future  as  it  would 
be  made  by  Germany. 

And  in  the  mood  of  that  day,  with  defeatism  rife  in  Europe, 
and  pessimism  miasmatic  in  America,  there  was  reason 
enough  for  Nicky  to  believe  in  his  prophecy  and  to  inspire 
belief  in  its  possibility.  The  only  impossible  thing  about  it 
was  that  the  world  should  ever  endure  the  dominance  of 
Germany.  Death  would  seem  better  to  almost  everybody 
than  life  in  such  a  civilization  as  she  promised. 

Mamise  feared  the  Teutonic  might,  but  she  could  not  for  a 
moment  consent  to  accept  it.  There  was  only  one  thing  for 
her  to  do,  and  that  was  to  lea'rn  what  plans  she  could,  and 
thwart  them.  Here  within  her  grasp  was  the  long-sought 
opportunity  to  pay  off  the  debt  she  had  incurred.  She  could 
be  a  soldier  now,  at  last.  There  was  no  price  that  Nicky  might 
have  demanded  too  great,  too  costly,  too  shameful  for  her  to 
pay.  To  denounce  him  or  defy  him  would  be  a  criminal  waste 
of  opportunity. 

She  said:  "I  understand.  You  are  right,  of  course.  Let 
me  help  in  any  way  I  can.  I  only  wish  there  were  something 
big  for  me  to  do." 

Nicky  was  overjoyed.  He  had  triumphed  both  as  patriot 
and  as  lover. 

"There  is  a  big  think  for  you  to  do,"  he  said.  "You  can 
all  you  vill." 

"Tell  me,"  she  pleaded. 

"You  are  in  shipyard.  This  man  Davidge  goes  on  building 
ships.  I  gave  him  fair  warning.  I  sinked  one  ship  for  him, 
but  he  makes  more." 

"You  sank  his  ship?"  Mamise  gasped. 

"Sure!  The  Clara,  he  called  her.  I  find  where  she  goes  to 
take  cargo.  I  go  myself.  I  row  up  behind  the  ship  in  little 
boat,  and  I  fasten  by  the  rudder-post  under  the  water,  where  no 
one  sees,  a  bomb.  It  is  all  innocent  till  ship  moves.  Then  every 
time  the  rudder  turns  a  little  screw  turns  in  the  machine. 


THE    CUP    OF    FURY  281 

"It  turns  for  two,  three  days;  then — boom!  It  makes  ex 
plosion,  tears  ship  to  pieces,  and  down  she  goes.  And  so 
goes  all  the  next  ships  if  you  help  again." 

"Again?     What  do  you  mean  by  again?" 

"It  is  you,  Marie  Louise,  who  sinks  the  Clara." 

Her  laugh  of  incredulity  was  hardly  more  than  a  shiver 
of  dread. 

"/a  wohl!  You  did  told  Chake  Nuttle  vat  Davidge  tells 
you.  Chake  Nuttle  tells  me.  I  go  and  make  sink  the  ship!" 

"Jake  Nuddle!  It  was  Jake  that  told  you!"  Mamise  fal 
tered,  seeing  her  first  vague  suspicions  damnably  confirmed. 

"Sure!  Chake  Nuttle  is  my  Leutnant.  He  has  had  much 
money,  He  gets  more.  He  shall  be  rich  man  after  comes 
Der  Tag.  It  might  be  we  make  him  von  Nuttle !  and  you  shall 
be  Grafin  von  Oesten." 

Mamise  was  in  an  abject  terror.  The  thick  trees  of  the 
park  were  spooky  as  the  dim  light  of  the  car  elicited  from 
the  black  wall  of  dark  faint  details  of  tree-trunks  and  naked 
boughs  stark  with  winter.  She  was  in  a  hurry  to  learn  the 
rest  and  be  gone.  She  spoke  with  a  poor  imitation  of  pride: 

"So  I  have  already  done  something  more  for  Germany. 
That's  splendid.  Now  tell  me  what  else  I  can  do,  for  I  want 
to — to  get  busy  right  away." 

Nicky  was  too  intoxicated  with  his  success  to  see  through 
her  thin  disguise. 

"You  are  clos'e  by  Davidge.  Chake  Nuttle  tells  me  he  is 
sveet  on  you.  You  have  his  confidence.  You  can  learn 
what  secrets  he  has.  Next  time  we  do  not  vait  for  ship  to 
be  launched  and  to  go  for  cargo.  It  might  go  some  place 
ve  could  not  find. 

"So  now  ve  going  blow  up  those  ships  before  they  touch 
vater — ve  blow  up  his  whole  yard.  You  shall  go  beck  and 
take  up  again  your  vork,  and  ven  all  is  right  I  come  down 
and  get  a  job.  I  dress  like  vorkman  and  get  into  the  yard. 
And  I  bring  in  enough  bombs  to  blow  up  all  the  ships  and 
the  cranes  and  the  machines. 

"Chake  Nuttle  tells  me  Davidge  just  gets  a  plate-bending 
machine.  Forty-five  t'ousand  dollars  it  costs  him,  and  long 
time  to  get.  In  one  minute — poof!  Ve  bend  that  plate- 
bender!" 

He  laughed  a  great  Teutonic  laugh  and  supposed  that 


282  THE    CUP   OF    FURY 

she  was  laughing,  too.  When  he  had  subsided  a  little, 
he  said: 

"So  now  you  know  vat  you  are  to  make!  You  like  to 
do  so  much  for  Chermany,  yes?" 

"Oh  yes!     Yes!"  said  Mamise. 

"You  promise  to  do  vat  I  send  you  vord?" 

"Yes."     She  would  have  promised  to  blow  up  the  Capitol. 

"Ach,  how  beautiful  you  are  even  in  the  dark!     Kiss  me!" 

Remembering  Judith,  she  paid  that  odious  price,  wishing 
that  she  might  have  the  beast's  infamous  head  with  a  sword. 
It  was  a  kiss  of  betrayal,  but  she  felt  that  it  was  no  Judas- 
kiss,  since  Nicky  was  no  Christ. 

He  told  her  more  of  his  plans  in  detail,  and  was  so  childishly 
proud  of  his  superb  achievements,  past  and  future,  that  she 
could  hardly  persuade  him  to  take  her  back  to  the  station. 
He  assured  her  that  there  was  abundant  time,  but  she  would 
not  trust  his  watch.  She  explained  how  necessary  it  was  for 
her  to  return  to  Washington  and  to  Polly  Widdicombe's  house 
before  midnight.  And  at  last  he  yielded  to  her  entreaties, 
opened  the  door,  and  leaned  out  to  tell  the  driver  to  turn  back. 

Mamise  was  uneasy  till  they  were  out  of  the  park  and  into 
the  lighted  streets  again.  But  there  was  no  safety  here,  for 
as  they  glided  down  Charles  Street  a  taxicab  going  with  the 
reckless  velocity  of  taxicabs  tried  to  cut  across  their  path. 

There  was  a  swift  fencing  for  the  right  of  way,  and  then  the 
two  cars  came  together  with  a  clash  and  much  crumpling  of 
fenders. 

The  drivers  descended  to  wrangle  over  the  blame,  and 
Mamise  had  visions  of  a  trip  to  the  police  station,  with  a  con 
sequent  exposure.  But  Nicky  was  alive  to  the  danger  of 
notoriety.  He  got  out  and  assumed  the  blame,  taking  the 
other  driver's  part  and  offering  to  pay  the  damages. 

The  taxicab-driver  assessed  them  liberally  at  fifty  dollars, 
and  Nicky  filled  his  palm  with  bills,  ordering  his  own  driver 
to  proceed.  The  car  limped  along  with  a  twisted  steering-gear, 
and  Nicky  growled  thanksgivings  over  the  narrow  escape  the 
German  Empire  had  had  from  losing  two  of  its  most  valuable 
agents. 

Mamise  was  sick  with  terror  of  what  might  have  been. 
She  saw  the  collision  with  a  fatal  result,  herself  and  Nicky 
killed  and  flung  to  the  street,  dead  together.  It  was  not  the 


THE   CUP   OF    FURY  283 

fear  of  dying  that  froze  her  soul ;  it  was  the  posthumous  blow 
she  would  have  given  to  Davidge's  trust  in  her  and  all  women, 
the  pain  she  would  have  inflicted  on  his  love.  For  to  his 
dying  day  he  would  have  believed  her  false  to  him,  a  cheap 
and  nasty  trickster,  sneaking  off  to  another  town  to  a  ren 
dezvous  with  another  man.  And  that  man  a  German! 

The  picture  of  his  bitter  disillusionment  and  of  her  own 
unmerited  and  eternal  disgrace  was  intolerably  real  in  spite 
of  the  fact  that  she  knew  it  to  be  untrue,  for  our  imaginations 
are  far  more  ancient  and  more  irresistible  than  our  late  and 
faltering  reliance  on  the  truth ;  the  heavens  and  hells  we  fancy 
have  more  weight  with  our  credulities  than  any  facts  we  en 
counter.  We  can  dodge  the  facts  or  close  our  eyes  to  them, 
but  we  cannot  escape  our  dreams,  whether  our  eyes  are  wide 
or  sealed. 

Mamise  could  not  free  herself  of  this  nightmare  till  she  had 
bidden  Nicky  good-by  the  last  time  and  left  him  in  the  cab 
outside  the  station. 

Further  nightmares  awaited  her,  for  in  the  waiting-room  she 
could  not  fight  off  the  conviction  that  the  train  would  never 
arrive.  When  it  came  clanging  in  on  grinding  wheels  and  she 
clambered  aboard,  she  knew  that  it  would  be  wrecked,  and 
the  finding  of  her  body  in  the  debris,  or  its  disappearance  in 
the  flames,  would  break  poor  Davidge's  heart  and  leave  her  to 
the  same  ignominy  in  his  memory. 

While  the  train  swung  on  toward  Washington,  she  added  an 
other  torment  to  her  collection :  how  could  she  save  Davidge 
from  Nicky  without  betraying  her  sister's  husband  into  the 
hands  of  justice?  What  right  had  she  to  tell  Davidge  any 
thing  when  her  sacred  duty  to  her  family  and  her  poor  sister 
must  first  be  heartlessly  violated? 


BOOK  VII 

AT   THE    SHIPYARD 


recognized  the  lily-like  beauty   of  Miss  Webling 
in  the  smutty-faced  passer-boy  crouching   at    Button's 
elbow. 


CHAPTER  I 

MAMISE  was  astounded  by  the  altered  aspect  of  her  own 
soul,  for  people  can  on  occasion  accomplish  what  the 
familiar  Irish  drillmaster  invited  his  raw  recruits  to  do — 
"Step  out  and  take  a  look  at  yourselves." 

Also,  like  the  old  lady  of  the  nursery  rhymes  whose  skirts 
were  cut  off  while  she  slept,  Mamise  regarded  herself  with 
incredulity  and  exclaimed: 

"Can  this  be  I?" 

If  she  had  had  a  little  dog  at  home,  it  would  have  barked 
at  her  in  unrecognition  and  convinced  her  that  she  was  not 
herself. 

What  astounded  her  was  the  realization  that  the  problem 
of  disregarding  either  her  love  or  her  duty  was  no  longer  a 
difficult  problem.  In  London,  when  she  had  dimly  suspected 
her  benefactors,  the  Weblings,  of  betraying  the  trust  that  Eng 
land  put  in  them,  she  had  abhorred  the  thought  of  mention 
ing  her  surmise  to  any  one  who  might  harm  them.  Later, 
at  the  shipyard,  when  she  had  suspected  her  sister's  husband 
of  disloyalty,  she  had  put  away  the  thought  of  action  because 
it  would  involve  her  sister's  ruin.  But  now,  as  she  left  Balti 
more,  convinced  that  her  sister's  husband  was  in  a  plot 
against  her  lover  and  her  country,  she  felt  hardly  so  much  as 
a  brake  on  her  eagerness  for  the  sacrifice  of  her  family  or  her 
self.  The  horror  had  come  to  be  a  solemn  duty  so  important 
as  to  be  almost  pleasant.  She  was  glad  to  have  something 
at  last  to  give  up  for  her  nation. 

The  thorough  change  in  her  desires  was  due  to  a  complete 
change  in  her  soul.  She  had  gradually  come  to  love  the  man 
whose  prosperity  was  threatened  by  her  sister's  husband,  and 
her  vague  patriotism  had  been  stirred  from  dreams  to  delirium. 
Almost  the  whole  world  was  undergoing  such  a  war  change. 
The  altar  of  freedom  so  shining  white  had  recently  become 
an  altar  of  sacrifice  splashed  with  the  blood  of  its  votaries. 
19 


288  THE    CUP   OF    FURY 

Men  were  offering  themselves,  casting  from  them  all  the  old 
privileges  of  freedom,  the  hopes  of  success  in  love  and  busi 
ness,  and  submitting  to  discipline,  to  tyranny,  to  vile  hard 
ships.  Wives  and  mothers  were  hurrying  their  men  to  the 
slaughter;  those  who  had  no  men  to  give  or  men  too  weak 
for  the  trenches  or  unwilling  to  go  were  ashamed  of  themselves 
because  they  were  missing  from  the  beadroll  of  contributors. 

Mamise  had  become  fanatic  with  the  rest.  She  had  wished 
to  build  ships,  and  had  been  refused  more  than  a  stenographer's 
share  in  the  process.  Next  she  had  planned  to  go  to  the  firing- 
line  herself  and  offer  what  gift  she  had — the  poor  little  gift  of 
entertaining  the  soldiers  with  the  vaudeville  stunts  she  had 
lived  down.  And  while  she  waited  for  a  passport  to  join  the 
army  of  women  in  France,  she  found  at  hand  an  opportunity 
to  do  a  big  deed,  to  thwart  the  enemy,  to  save  ships  and  all 
the  lives  that  ships  alone  could  save.  The  price  would  be  the 
liberty  and  what  little  good  name  her  sister's  husband  had; 
it  would  mean  protests  and  tears  from  her  poor  sister,  whom 
life  had  dealt  with  harshly  enough  already. 

But  Mamise  counted  the  cost  as  nothing  compared  to  what 
it  would  buy.  She  dared  not  laugh  aloud  in  the  crowded 
chair-car,  but  her  inner  being  was  shaken  with  joy.  She  had 
learned  to  love  Davidge  and  to  adore  that  strange,  shapeless 
idea  that  she  called  her  country.  Instead  of  sacrificing  her 
lover  to  her  people,  she  could  serve  both  by  the  same  deed. 
She  was  wildly  impatient  for  the  moment  when  she  could 
lay  before  Davidge  the  splendid  information  she  had  secured 
at  the  expense  of  a  few  negligible  lies.  If  they  should  cost 
her  a  decade  in  purgatorial  torments,  she  would  feel  that  they 
were  worth  it. 

She  reached  Washington  at  a  little  after  eleven  and  Grin- 
den  Hall  before  midnight.  Now  as  she  stood  on  the  portico 
and  looked  across  the  river  at  the  night-lit  city,  she  felt  such 
a  pride  as  she  had  never  known. 

She  waved  a  salutation  to  the  wraith  of  a  town,  her  mind, 
if  not  her  lips,  voicing  the  words: 

"You  owe  me  something,  old  capital.  You'll  never  put  up 
any  statues  to  me  or  carve  my  name  on  any  tablets,  but  I'm 
doing  something  for  you  that  will  mean  more  than  anybody 
will  ever  realize." 

She  turned  and  found  the  black  maid  gaping  at  her  sleepily 


TH-E    CUP    OF    FURY  289 

and  wondering  what  invisible  lover  she  was  waving  at. 
Mamise  made  no  explanation,  but  went  in,  feeling  a  trifle 
foolish,  but  divinely  so. 

Polly  got  out  of  bed  and  came  all  bundled  up  to  Mamise's 
room  to  demand  an  accounting. 

"I  was  just  on  the  point  of  telephoning  the  police  to  see  if 
you  had  been  found  in  the  river." 

Mamise  did  not  bother  either  to  explain  her  past  lies  or  tell 
any  new  ones.  She  majestically  answered: 

"Polly  darling,  I  have  been  engaged  in  affairs  of  state,  which 
I  am  not  at  liberty  to  divulge  to  the  common  public." 

'Rot!"  said  Polly.  "I  believe  the  'affairs,'  but  not  the 
'state.'" 

Mamise  was  above  insult.  "Some  day  you  will  know. 
You've  heard  of  Helen  of  Troy,_  the  lady  with  the  face  that 
launched  a  thousand  ships?  Well,  this  face  of  mine  will 
launch  at  least  half  a  dozen  freight-boats." 

Polly  yawned.  "I'll  call  my  doctor  in  the  morning  and 
have  you  taken  away  quietly.  Your  mind's  wandering,  as 
well  as  the  rest  of  you." 

Mamise  chuckled  like  a  child  with  a  great  secret,  and  Polly 
waddled  back  to  her  bed. 

Next  morning  Mamise  woke  into  a  world  warm  with  her 
own  importance,  though  the  thermometer  was  farther  down 
than  Washington's  oldest  records.  She  called  Davidge  on  the 
long-distance  telephone,  and  there  was  a  zero  in  his  voice  that 
she  had  never  heard  before. 

"This  is  Mamise,"  she  sang. 

"Yes?"     Simply  that  and  nothing  more. 

She  laughed  aloud,  glad  that  he  cared  enough  for  her  to  be 
so  angry  at  her.  She  forgot  the  decencies  of  telephone  eti 
quette  enough  to  sing  out : 

"Do  you  really  love  me  so  madly?" 

He  loathed  sentimentalities  over  the  telephone,  and  she 
knew  it,  and  was  always  indulging  in  them.  But  the  fat  was 
on  the  wire  now,  and  he  came  back  at  her  with  a  still  icier 
tone: 

"There's  only  one  good  excuse  for  what  you've  done.  Are 
you  telephoning  from  a  hospital?" 

"No,  from  Polly's." 

"Then  I  can't  imagine  any  excuse." 


290  THE    CUP   OF    FURY 

"But  you're  a  business  man,  not  an  imaginator,"  she  railed. 
"You  evidently  don't  know  me.  I'm  'Belle  Boyd,  the  Rebel 
Spy,'  and  also  'Joan  of  Arkansas,'  and  a  few  other  patriots. 
I've  got  news  for  you  that  will  melt  the  icicles  off  your  eye 
brows." 

"News?"  he  answered,  with  no  curiosity  modifying  his 
anger. 

"War  news.     May  I  come  down  and  tell  you  about  it?" 

"This  is  a  free  country." 

"Fine!  You're  simply  adorable  when  you  try  to  sulk. 
What  time  would  be  most  convenient?" 

"I  make  no  more  appointments  with  you,  young  woman." 

"All  right.     Then  I'll  wait  at  my  shanty  till  you  come." 

"I  was  going  to  rent  it." 

"You  just  dare!  I  am  coming  back  to  work.  The  strike 
is  over." 

"You'd  better  come  to  the  office  as  soon  as  you  get  here." 

"All  right.     Give  my  love  to  Miss  Gabus." 

She  left  the  telephone  and  set  about  packing  her  things  in 
a  fury.  Polly  reminded  her  that  she  had  appointments  for 
fittings  at  dressmakers'. 

"I  never  keep  appointments,"  said  Mamise.  "You  can 
cancel  them  for  me  till  this  cruel  war  is  over.  Have  the  bills 
sent  to  me  at  the  shipyard,  will  you,  dear?  Sorry  to  bother 
you,  but  I've  barely  time  to  catch  my  train." 

Polly  called  her  a  once  unmentionable  name  that  was  coming 
into  fashionable  use  after  a  long  exile.  Women  had  draped 
themselves  in  a  certain  animal's  pelt  with  such  freedom  and 
grace  for  so  many  years  that  its  name  had  lost  enough  of  its 
impropriety  to  be  spoken,  and  not  too  much  to  express 
disapproval. 

"You  skunk!"  said  Polly.  And  Mamise  laughed.  Every 
thing  made  her  laugh  now;  she  was  so  happy  that  she  began 
to  cry. 

' '  Why  the  crocodiles  ?"  said  Polly.  ' '  Because  you're  leaving 
me?" 

"No,  I'm  crying  because  I  didn't  realize  how  unhappy  I  had 
always  been  before  I  am  as  happy  as  I  am  now.  I'm  going 
to  be  useful  at  last,  Polly.  I'm  going  to  do  something  for 
my  country." 

She  was  sharing  in  that  vast  national  ecstasy  which  is  called 


THE    CUP   OF    FURY  291 

patriotism  and  which  turns  the  flames  of  martyrdom  into 
roses. 

When  Mamise  reached  the  end  of  her  journey  she  found 
Davidge  waiting  for  her  at  the  railroad  station  with  a 
limousine. 

His  manner  was  studiously  insulting,  but  he  was  helplessly 
glad  to  see  her,  and  the  humiliation  he  had  suffered  from  her 
failure  to  keep  her  engagements  with  him  in  Washington  was 
canceled  by  the  tribute  of  her  return  to  him.  The  knot  of  his 
frown  was  solved  by  the  mischief  of  her  smile.  He  had  to  say : 

"Why  didn't  you  meet  me  at  luncheon?" 

"How  could  I  prevent  the  Potomac  from  putting  the  old 
bridge  out  of  commission?"  she  demanded.  "I  got  there  in 
time,  but  they  wouldn't  let  me  across,  and  by  the  time  I 
reached  the  hotel  you  had  gone,  and  I  didn't  know  where  to 
find  you.  Heaven  knows  I  tried." 

The  simplicity  of  this  explanation  deprived  him  of  every 
excuse  for  further  wrath,  and  he  was  not  inspired  to  ask  any 
further  questions.  He  was  capable  of  nothing  better  than  a 
large  and  stupid: 

"Oh!" 

"Wait  till  you  hear  what  I've  got  to  tell  you." 

But  first  he  disclosed  a  little  plot  of  his  own  with  a  com 
fortable  guiltiness: 

"How  would  you  like,"  he  stammered,  "since  you  say  you 
have  news — how  would  you  like — instead  of  going  to  your 
shanty — I've  had  a  fire  built  in  it — but — how  would  you 
like  to  take  a  ride  in  the  car — out  into  the  country,  you  know? 
Then  you  could  tell  me,  and  nobody  would  hear  or  interrupt." 

She  was  startled  by  the  similarity  of  his  arrangement  to 
that  of  Nicky  Easton,  but  she  approached  it  with  different 
dread. 

She  regretted  the  broad  daylight  and  the  disconcerting 
landscape.  In  the  ride  with  Nicky  she  had  been  enveloped 
in  the  dark.  Now  the  sky  was  lined  with  unbleached  wool. 
The  air  was  thick  with  snow  withheld,  and  the  snow  on  the 
ground  took  the  color  of  the  sky.  But  the  light  was  searching, 
cynical,  and  the  wayside  scenes  were  revealed  with  the 
despondent  starkness  of  a  Russian  novel.  In  this  romance- 
less,  colorless  dreariness  it  was  not  easy  for  Mamise  to  gloss 
over  the  details  of  her  meeting  with  Nicky  Easton. 


292  THE    CUP   OF    FURY 

There  was  no  escaping  this  part  of  the  explanation,  however, 
and  she  could  see  how  little  comfort  Davidge  took  from  the 
news  that  she  had  gone  so  far  to  be  alone  with  a  former 
devotee.  A  man  does  not  want  his  sweetheart  to  take  risks 
for  him  beyond  a  certain  point,  and  he  would  rather  not  be 
saved  at  all  than  be  saved  by  her  at  too  high  a  price.  The 
modern  man  has  a  hard  time  living  down  the  heritage  from  the 
ten-thousand-year  habitude  of  treating  his  women  like  children 
who  cannot  be  trusted  to  take  care  of  themselves. 

Mamise  had  such  poor  success  with  the  part  of  her  chronicle 
she  wished  to  publish  that  she  boggled  miserably  the  part  she 
wanted  to  handle  with  most  discretion.  As  is  usual  in  such 
cases,  the  most  conspicuous  thing  about  her  message  was  her 
inability  to  conceal  the  fact  that  she  was  concealing  some 
thing.  Davidge's  imagination  was  consequently  so  busy  that 
he  paid  hardly  any  attention  to  the  tremendous  facts  she  so 
awkwardly  delivered. 

She  might  as  well  have  told  him  flat  that  Nicky  would  not 
divulge  his  plot  except  with  his  arms  about  her  and  his  lips 
at  her  cheeks.  That  would  not  have  been  easy  telling,  but 
it  was  all  too  easy  imagining  for  Davidge.  He  was  thrown 
into  an  utter  wretchedness  by  the  vision  he  had  of  her  surrender 
to  the  opportunity  and  to  the  undoubted  importunity  of  her 
companion.  He  had  a  morbid  desire  to  make  her  confess, 
and  confessors  have  a  notorious  appetite  for  details. 

"You  weren't  riding  with  Easton  alone  in  the  dark  all  that 
time — without — ' ' 

She  waited  for  the  question  as  for  a  bludgeon.  Davidge  had 
some  trouble  in  wielding  it.  He  hated  the  thought  so  much 
that  the  words  were  unspeakable,  and  he  hunted  for  some  para 
phrase.  In  the  sparse  thesaurus  of  his  vocabulary  he  found 
nothing  subtle.  He  groaned: 

"Without  his — his  making  love  to  you?" 

"I  wish  you  wouldn't  ask  me,"  said  Mamise. 

"I  don't  need  to.  You've  answered,"  Davidge  snarled. 
"And  so  will  he." 

Mamise's  heart  was  suddenly  a  live  coal,  throbbing  with 
fire  and  keenly  painful — yet  very  warm.  She  had  a  man  who 
loved  her  well  enough  to  hate  for  her  and  to  avenge  her. 
That  was  something  gained. 

Davidge  brooded.     It  was  inconceivably  hideous  that  he 


THE    CUP   OF    FURY  293 

should  have  given  his  heart  to  this  pretty  thing  at  his  side 
only  to  have  her  ensconce  herself  in  the  arms  of  another  man 
and  give  him  the  liberty  of  her  cheeks — Heaven  knew,  hell 
knew,  what  other  liberties.  He  vowed  that  he  would  never 
put  his  lips  where  another  man's  had  been. 

Mamise  seemed  to  feel  soiled  and  fit  only  for  the  waste- 
basket  of  life.  She  had  delivered  her  "message  to  Garcia," 
and  Garcia  rewarded  her  with  disgust.  She  waited  shame- 
fast  for  a  moment  before  she  could  even  falter: 

"Did  you  happen  to  hear  the  news  I  brought  you?  Or 
doesn't  it  interest  you?" 

Davidge  answered  with  repugnance: 

"Agh!" 

In  her  meekness  she  needed  some  insult  to  revive  her,  and 
this  sufficed.  She  flared  instantly: 

"I'm  sorry  I  told  you.  I  hope  that  Nicky  blows  up  your 
whole  damned  shipyard  and  you  with  it;  and  I'd  like  to  help 
him!" 

Nothing  less  insane  could  have  served  the  brilliant  effect  of 
that  outburst.  It  cleared  the  sultry  air  like  a  crackling  thun 
derbolt.  A  gentle  rain  followed  down  her  cheeks,  while  the 
overcharged  heart  of  Davidge  roared  with  Jovian  laughter. 

There  is  no  cure  for  these  desperate  situations  like  such  an 
explosion.  It  burns  up  at  once  the  litter  of  circumstance  and 
leaves  hardly  an  ash.  It  fuses  elements  that  otherwise  resist 
welding,  and  it  annihilates  all  minor  fears  in  one  great  terror 
that  ends  in  a  joyous  relief. 

Mamise  was  having  a  noble  cry  now,  and  Davidge  was  sob 
bing  with  laughter — the  two  forms  of  recreation  most  congenial 
to  their  respective  sexes. 

Davidge  caught  her  hands  and  cooed  with  such  noise  that 
the  driver  outside  must  have  heard  the  reverberations  through 
the  glass: 

"You  blessed  child!  I'm  a  low-lived  brute,  and  you're  an 
angel." 

A  man  loves  to  call  himself  a  brute,  and  a  woman  loves  to 
be  called  an  angel,  especially  when  it  is  untrue  in  both  cases. 

The  sky  of  their  being  thus  cleansed  with  rain  and  thunder, 
and  all  blue  peace  again,  they  were  calm  enough  by  and  by  to 
consider  the  main  business  of  the  session — what  was  to  be  done 
to  save  the  shipyard  from  destruction? 


294  THE    CUP   OF    FURY 

Mamise  had  to  repeat  most  of  what  she  had  told,  point  by 
point : 

Nicky  was  not  going  to  wait  till  the  ships  were  launched  or 
even  finished.  He  was  impatient  to  strike  a  resounding  blow 
at  the  American  program.  Nicky  was  going  to  let  Mamise 
know  just  when  the  blow  was  to  be  struck,  so  that  she  might 
share  in  the  glory  of  it  when  triumphant  Germany  rewarded 
her  faithful  servants  in  America.  Jake  Nuddle  was  to  take 
part  in  the  ship-slaughter  for  the  double  privilege  of  protesting 
against  this  capitalistic  war  and  of  crippling  those  cruel  capi 
talists  to  whom  he  owed  all  his  poverty — to  hear  him  tell  it. 

When  Mamise  had  finished  this  inventory  of  the  situation 
Davidge  pondered  aloud : 

"Of  course,  we  ought  to  turn  the  case  over  to  the  Depart 
ment  of  Justice  and  the  Military  and  Naval  Intelligence  to 
handle,  but—" 

"But  I'd  like  to  shelter  my  poor  sister  if  I  could,"  said 
Mamise.  "Of  course,  I  wouldn't  let  any  tenderness  for  Jake 
Nuddle  stand  in  the  way  of  my  patriotic  duty,  for  Heaven 
knows  he's  as  much  of  a  traitor  to  my  poor  sister  as  he  is  to 
everything  else  that's  decent,  but  I'd  like  to  keep  him  out 
of  it  somehow.  Something  might  happen  to  make  it  possible, 
don't  you  suppose?" 

"  I  might  cripple  him  and  send  him  to  a  hospital  to  save  his 
life,"  said  Davidge. 

"Anything  to  keep  him  out  of  it,"  said  Mamise.  "If  I 
should  tell  the  authorities,  though,  they'd  put  him  in  jail 
right  away,  wouldn't  they?" 

"Probably.  And  they'd  run  your  friend  Nicky  down  and 
intern  him.  Then  I'd  lose  my  chance  to  lay  hands  on  him 
as—" 

"As  he  did  on  you,"  was  what  he  started  to  say,  but  he 
stopped  in  time. 

This  being  Davidge's  fierce  desire,  ne  found  plenty  of  justifi 
cation  for  it  in  other  arguments.  In  the  first  place,  there  was 
no  telling  where  Nicky  might  be.  He  had  given  Mamise  no 
hint  of  his  headquarters.  She  had  neglected  to  ask  where  she 
could  reach  him,  and  had  been  instructed  simply  to  wait  till  he 
gave  her  the  signal.  No  doubt  he  could  be  picked  up  some 
where  in  the  enormous,  ubiquitous  net  with  which  America 
had  been  gradually  covered  by  the  secret  services  and  by  the 


THE    CUP   OF    FURY  295 

far-flung  line  of  the  American  Protective  League  made  up  of 
private  citizens.  But  there  would  be  a  certain  unsatis- 
factoriness  about  nipping  his  plot  so  far  from  even  the  bud. 
Prevention  is  wisdom,  but  it  lacks  fascination. 

And  supposing  that  they  found  Nicky,  what  evidence  had 
they  against  him,  except  Mamise's  uncorroborated  statement 
that  he  had  discussed  certain  plots  with  her?  Enemy  aliens 
could  be  interned  without  trial,  but  that  meant  a  halcyon 
existence  for  Nicky  and  every  comfort  except  liberty.  This 
was  not  to  be  considered.  Davidge  had  a  personal  grudge, 
too,  to  satisfy.  He  owed  Nicky  punishment  for  sinking  the 
ship  named  after  Davidge's  mother  and  for  planning  to  sink 
the  ship  he  was  naming  after  the  woman  he  hoped  to  make 
his  wife. 

Davidge  was  eager  to  seize  Nicky  in  the  very  act  of  planting 
his  torpedo  and  hoist  him  with  his  own  petard.  So  he  coun 
seled  a  plan  of  waiting  further  developments.  Mamise  was  the 
more  willing,  since  it  deferred  the  hateful  moment  when  Jake 
Nuddle  would  be  exposed.  She  had  a  hope  that  things  might 
so  happen  as  to  leave  him  out  of  the  denouement  entirely. 

And  now  Davidge  and  Mamise  were  in  perfect  agreement, 
conspirators  against  a  conspiracy.  And  there  was  the  final 
note  of  the  terrible  in  their  compact :  their  failure  meant  the 
demolition  of  all  those  growing  ships,  the  nullification  of 
Davidge's  entire  contribution  to  the  war;  their  success  would 
mean  perhaps  the  death  of  Easton  and  the  blackening  of  the 
name  of  Mamise's  sister  and  her  sister's  children. 

The  solemnity  of  the  outlook  made  impossible  any  talk  of 
love.  Davidge  left  Mamise  at  her  cottage  and  rode  back  to 
his  office,  feeling  like  the  commander  of  a  stockade  in  the  time 
of  an  Indian  uprising.  Mamise  found  that  his  foresight  had 
had  the  house  warmed  for  her;  and  there  were  flowers  in  a  jar. 
She  smiled  at  his  tenderness  even  in  his  wrath.  But  the  sight 
of  the  smoke  rolling  from  the  chimney  had  caught  the  eye 
of  her  sister,  and  she  found  Abbie  waiting  to  welcome  her. 

The  two  rushed  to  each  other  with  the  affection  of  blood- 
kin,  but  Mamise  felt  like  a  Judas  when  she  kissed  the  sister 
she  was  planning  to  betray.  Abbie  began  at  once  to  recite 
a  catalogue  of  troubles.  They  were  sordid  and  petty,  but 
Mamise  shivered  to  think  how  real  a  tragedy  impended.  She 
wondered  how  right  she  was  to  devastate  her  sister's  life  for 


296  THE    CUP    OF    FURY 

the  sake  of  a  cause  which,  after  all,  was  only  the  imagined 
welfare  of  millions  of  total  strangers.  She  could  not  see  the 
nation  for  the  people,  but  her  sister  was  her  sister,  and  piti 
fully  human.  That  was  the  worst  wrench  of  war,  the  in 
cessant  compulsions  to  tear  the  heart  away  from  its  natural 
moorings. 


CHAPTER   II 

DAVIDGE  thought  it  only  fair  to  take  the  Department  of 
Justice  operative,  Larrey,  into  his  confidence.  Larrey 
was  perfectly  willing  to  defer  reporting  to  his  office  chief  until 
the  more  dramatic  conclusion;  for  he  had  an  easily  under 
standable  ambition  to  share  in  the  glory  of  it.  It  was  agreed 
that  a  closer  watch  than  ever  should  be  kept  on  the  shipyard 
and  its  approaches.  Easton  had  promised  to  notify  Mamise 
of  his  arrival,  but  he  might  grow  suspicious  of  her  and  strike 
without  warning. 

The  period  of  waiting  was  as  maddening  as  the  suspense  of 
the  poor  insomniac  who  implored  the  man  next  door  to  ' '  drop 
the  other  shoe."  Mamise  suffered  doubly  from  her  dual 
interest  in  Abbie  and  in  Davidge.  She  dared  not  tell  Abbie 
what  was  in  the  wind,  though  she  tried  to  undermine  grad 
ually  the  curious  devotion  Abbie  bore  to  her  worthless  hus 
band.  But  Mamise's  criticisms  of  Jake  only  spurred  Abbie  to 
new  defenses  of  him  and  a  more  loyal  affection. 

Day  followed  day,  and  Mamise  found  the  routine  of  the 
office  intolerably  monotonous.  Time  gnawed  at  her  resolu 
tion,  and  she  began  to  hope  to  be  away  when  Easton  made 
his  attempt.  It  occurred  to  her  that  it  would  be  pleasant  to 
have  an  ocean  between  her  and  the  crisis.  She  said  to 
Davidge: 

"I  wish  Nicky  would  come  soon,  for  I  have  applied  for  a 
passport  to  France.  Major  Widdicombe  got  me  the  forms  to 
fill  out,  and  he  promised  to  expedite  them.  I  ought  to  go 
the  minute  they  come." 

This  information  threw  Davidge  into  a  complex  dismay. 
Here  was  another  of  Mamise's  long-kept  secrets.  The  suc 
cess  of  her  plan  meant  the  loss  of  her,  or  her  indefinite  post 
ponement.  It  meant  more  yet.  He  groaned. 

"Good  Lord!  everybody  in  the  United  States  is  going  to 
•France  except  me.  Even  the  women  are  all  emigrating.  I 


298  THE    CUP   OF    FURY 

think  I'll  just  turn  the  shipyard  over  to  the  other  officers  of 
the  corporation  and  go  with  you.  Let  Easton  blow  it  up 
then,  if  he  wants  to,  so  long  as  I  get  into  the  uniform  and  into 
the  fighting." 

This  new  commotion  was  ended  by  a  shocking  and  unfore 
seen  occurrence.  The  State  Department  refused  to  grant 
Mamise  a  passport,  and  dazed  Widdicombe  by  letting  him 
know  confidentially  that  Mamise  was  on  the  red  list  of  sus 
pects  because  of  her  Germanized  past.  This  was  news  to 
Widdicombe,  and  he  went  to  Polly  in  a  state  of  bewilderment. 

Polly  had  never  told  him  what  Mamise  had  told  her,  but 
she  had  to  let  out  a  few  of  the  skeletons  in  Mamise's  closet 
now.  Widdicombe  felt  compromised  in  his  own  loyalty,  but 
Polly  browbeat  him  into  submission.  She  wrote  to  Mamise 
and  broke  the  news  to  her  as  gently  as  she  could,  but  the 
rebuff  was  cruel.  Mamise  took  her  sorrow  to  Davidge. 

He  was  furious  and  proposed  to  "go  to  the  mat"  with  the 
State  Department.  Mamise,  however,  shook  her  head;  she 
saw  that  her  only  hope  of  rehabilitation  lay  in  a  positive  proof 
of  her  fidelity. 

"I  got  my  name  stained  in  England  because  I  didn't  have 
the  pluck  to  do  something  positive.  I  was  irresolution  per 
sonified,  and  I'm  paying  for  it.  But  for  once  in  my  life  I 
learned  a  lesson,  and  when  I  learned  what  Nicky  planned  I 
ran  right  to  you  with  it.  Now  if  we  catch  Nicky  red-handed, 
and  I  turn  over  my  own  brother-in-law  to  justice,  that  ought 
to  redeem  me,  oughtn't  it?" 

Davidge  had  a  better  idea  for  her  protection.  "Marry  me, 
and  then  they  can't  say  anything." 

"Then  they'll  suspect  you,"  she  said.  "Too  many  good 
Americans  have  been  dragged  into  hot  water  by  pro-German 
wives,  and  I'm  not  going  to  marry  you  till  I  can  bring  you 
some  other  dower  than  a  spotted  reputation." 

"I'd  take  you  and  be  glad  to  get  you  if  you  were  as  polka- 
dotted  as  a  leopardess,"  said  Davidge. 

"Just  as  much  obliged;  but  no,  thank  you,"  said  Mamise. 
"Furthermore,  if  we  were  married,  the  news  would  reach 
Nicky  Easton  through  Jake  Nuddle,  and  then  Nicky  would 
lose  all  trust  in  me,  and  come  down  on  us  without  warning." 

"This  makes  about  the  fifteenth  rejection  I've  had,"  said 
Davidge.  "And  I'd  sworn  never  to  ask  you  again." 


THE    CUP   OF    FURY  299 

"I  promised  to  ask  you  when  the  time  was  ripe,"  said 
Mamise. 

"Don't  forget.     Barkis  is  always  willin'  and  waitin'." 

"While  we're  both  waiting,"  Mamise  went  on,  "there's 
one  thing  you've  got  to  do  for  me,  or  I'll  never  propose  to 
you." 

"Granted,  to  the  half  my  shipyard." 

"It's  only  a  job  in  your  shipyard.  I  can't  stand  this 
typewriter-tapping  any  longer.  I'm  going  mad.  I  want  to 
swing  a  hammer  or  something.  You  told  me  that  women 
could  build  a  whole  ship  if  they  wanted  to,  and  I  want  to 
build  my  part  of  one." 

"But—" 

"If  you  speak  of  my  hands,  I'll  prove  to  you  how  strong 
they  are.  Besides,  if  I  were  out  in  the  yard  at  work,  I  could 
keep  a  better  watch  for  Nicky,  and  I  could  keep  you  better 
informed  as  to  the  troubles  always  brewing  among  the  work 
men." 

"But—' 

"I'm  strong  enough  for  it,  too.  I've  been  taking  a  lot  of 
exercise  recently  to  get  in  trim.  If  you  don't  believe  me, 
feel  that  muscle." 

She  flexed  her  biceps,  and  he  took  hold  of  it  timidly  in  its 
silken  sleeve.  It  amazed  him,  for  it  was  like  marble.  Still, 
he  hated  to  lose  her  from  the  neighborliness  of  the  office; 
he  hated  to  send  her  out  among  the  workmen  with  their  rough 
language  and  their  undoubted  readiness  to  haze  her  and  teach 
her  her  place.  But  she  was  stubborn,  and  he  saw  that  her 
threat  was  in  earnest  when  she  said: 

"If  you  don't  give  me  a  job,  I'll  go  to  some  other  company." 

Then  he  yielded  and  wrote  her  a  note  to  the  superintendent 
of  the  yard,  and  said : 

"You  can  begin  to-morrow." 

She  smiled  in  her  triumph  and  made  the  very  womanly 
comment:  "But  I  haven't  a  thing  to  wear.  Do  you  know  a 
good  ladies'  tailor  who  can  fit  me  out  with  overalls,  some  one 
who  has  been  '  Breeches-maker  to  the  Queen '  and  can  drape 
a  baby-blue  denim  pant  modishly?" 

The  upshot  of  it  was  that  she  decided  to  make  her  own 
trousseau,  and  she  went  shopping  for  materials  and  patterns. 
She  ended  by  visiting  an  emporium  for  "gents'  furnishings." 


300  THE    CUP   OF    FURY 

The  storekeeper  asked  her  what  size  her  husband  wore,  and 
she  said: 

"Just  about  my  own." 

He  gave  her  the  smallest  suit  in  stock,  and  she  held  it  up 
against  her.  It  was  much  too  brief,  and  she  was  heartened 
to  know  that  there  were  workmen  littler  than  she. 

She  bought  the  garment  that  came  nearest  to  her  own 
dimensions,  and  hurried  home  with  it  joyously.  It  proved 
to  be  a  perfect  misfit,  and  she  worked  over  it  as  if  it  were  a 
coming-out  gown;  and  indeed  it  was  her  costume  for  her 
debut  into  the  world  of  manual  labor. 

Abbie  dropped  in  and  surprised  her  in  her  attitudes  and  was 
handsomely  scandalized : 

"When's  the  masquerade?"  she  asked. 

Mamise  told  her  of  her  new  career. 

Abbie  was  appalled.  "It's  against  the  Bible  for  a  woman 
to  wear  a  man's  things!"  she  protested.  Abbie  could  quote 
the  Scripture  for  every  discouraging  purpose. 

"I'd  rather  wear  them  than  wash  them,"  said  Mamise; 
"and  if  you'll  take  my  advice  you'll  get  a  suit  of  overalls 
yourself  and  earn  an  honest  living  and  five  times  as  much 
money  as  Jake  would  give  you — if  he  ever  gave  you  any." 

But  Abbie  wailed  that  Mamise  had  gone  indecent  as  well 
as  crazy,  and  trembled  at  the  thought  of  what  the  gossips 
along  the  row  would  do  with  the  family  reputation.  The 
worst  of  it  was  that  Mamise  had  money  in  the  bank  and  did 
not  have  to  work. 

That  was  the  incomprehensible  thing  to  Jake  Nuddle.  He 
accepted  the  familiar  theory  that  all  capital  is  stolen  goods, 
and  he  reproached  Mamise  with  the  double  theft  of  poor 
folks'  money  and  now  of  poor  folks'  work.  Mamise's  con 
tention  that  there  were  not  enough  workmen  for  the  country's 
needs  fell  on  deaf  ears,  for  Jake  believed  that  work  was  a 
crime  against  the  sacred  cause  of  the  laboring-man.  His 
ideal  of  a  laboring-man  was  one  who  seized  the  capital  from 
the  capitalists  and  then  ceased  to  labor. 

But  Jake's  too  familiar  eyes  showed  that  he  regarded 
Mamise  as  a  very  interesting  spectacle.  The  rest  of  the  work 
men  seemed  to  have  the  same  opinion  when  she  went  to  the 
yard  in  her  overalls  next  morning.  She  was  the  first  woman 
to  take  up  man's  work  in  the  neighborhood,  and  she  had  to 


THE    CUP   OF    FURY  301 

endure  the  most  searching  stares,  grins,  frowns,  and  com 
ments  that  were  meant  to  be  overheard. 

She  struck  all  the  men  as  immodest;  some  were  offended 
and  some  were  delighted.  As  usual,  modesty  was  but  another 
name  for  conformity.  Mamise  had  to  face  the  glares  of  the 
conventional  wives  and  daughters  in  their  bodices  that  fol 
lowed  every  contour,  their  light  skirts  that  blew  above  the 
knees,  and  their  provocative  hats  and  ribbons.  They  made  it 
plain  to  her  that  they  were  outraged  by  this  shapeless  passer 
by  in  the  bifurcated  potato-sack,  with  her  hair  tucked  up 
under  a  vizored  cap  and  her  hands  in  coarse  mittens. 

Mamise  had  studied  the  styles  affected  by  the  workmen 
as  if  they  were  fashion-plates  from  Paris,  and  she  had  equipped 
herself  with  a  slouchy  cap,  heavy  brogans,  a  thick  sweater, 
a  woolen  shirt,  and  thick  flannels  underneath. 

She  was  as  well  concealed  as  she  could  manage,  and  yet 
her  femininity  seemed  to  be  emphasized  by  her  very  disguise. 
The 'roundness  of  bosom  and  hip  and  the  fineness  of  shoulder 
differed  too  much  from  the  masculine  outline  to  be  hidden. 
And  somehow  there  was  more  coquetry  in  her  careful  careless 
ness  than  in  all  the  exaggerated  womanishness  of  the  shanty 
belles.  She  had  been  a  source  of  constant  wonder  to  the 
community  from  the  first.  But  now  she  was  regarded  as  a 
downright  menace  to  the  peace  and  the  morals  of  society. 

Mamise  reported  to  the  superintendent  and  gave  him 
Davidge's  card.  The  old  man  respected  Davidge's  written 
orders  and  remembered  the  private  instructions  Davidge 
had  given  him  to  protect  Mamise  from  annoyance  at  all 
costs.  The  superintendent  treated  her  as  if  she  were  a  child 
playing  at  salesmanship  in  a  store.  And  this  was  the  attitude 
of  all  the  men  except  a  few  incorrigible  gallants,  who  tried 
to  start  flirtations  and  make  movie  dates  with  her. 

Sutton,  the  master  riveter,  alone  received  her  with  just  the 
right  hospitality.  He  had  no  fear  that  she  would  steal  his 
job  or  his  glory  or  that  any  man  would.  He  had  talked  with 
her  often  and  let  her  practise  at  his  riveting-gun.  He  had 
explained  that  her  ambition  to  be  a  riveter  was  hopeless, 
since  it  would  take  at  least  three  months'  apprenticeship 
before  she  could  hope  to  begin  on  such  a  career.  But  her 
sincere  longings  to  be  a  builder  and  not  a  loafer  won  his 
respect. 


302  THE    CUP    OF    FURY 

When  she  expressed  a  shy  wish  to  belong  to  his  riveting- 
gang  he  said: 

"Right  you  are,  miss — or  should  I  say  mister?" 

"I'd  be  proud  if  you'd  call  me  bo,"  said  Mamise. 

"Right  you  are,  bo.  We'll  start  you  in  as  a  passer-boy. 
I'll  be  glad  to  get  rid  of  that  sleep-walker.  Hay,  Snotty!" 
he  called  to  a  grimy  lad  with  an  old  bucket.  The  youth 
rubbed  the  back  of  his  greasy  glove  across  the  snub  of  nose 
that  had  won  him  his  name,  and,  shifting  his  precocious  quid, 
growled : 

"Ah,  what!" 

"Ah,  go  git  your  time — or  change  to  another  gang.  Tell 
the  supe.  I'm  not  fast  enough  for  you.  Go  on — beat  it!" 

Mamise  saw  that  she  already  had  an  enemy.  She  pro 
tested  against  displacing  another  toiler,  but  Sutton  told  her 
that  there  were  jobs  enough  for  the  cub. 

He  explained  the  nature  of  Mamise's  duties,  talking  out 
of  one  side  of  his  mouth  and  using  the  other  for  ejaculations 
of  an  apparently  inexhaustible  supply  of  tobacco-juice. 
Seeing  that  Mamise's  startled  eyes  kept  following  these 
missiles,  he  laughed: 

"Do  you  use  chewin'?" 

"I  don't  think  so,"  said  Mamise,  not  quite  sure  of  his 
meaning. 

"Well,  you'll  have  to  keep  a  wad  of  gum  goin',  then,  for 
you  cert'n'y  need  a  lot  of  spit  in  this  business." 

Mamise  found  this  true  enough,  and  the  next  time  Davidge 
saw  her  she  kept  her  grinders  milling  and  used  the  back  of  her 
glove  with  a  professional  air.  For  the  present,  however,  she 
had  no  brain-cells  to  spare  for  mastication.  Sutton  intro 
duced  her  to  his  crew. 

"This  gink  here  with  the  whiskers  is  Zupnik;  he's  the 
holder-on;  he  handles  the  dolly  and  hangs  on  to  the  rivets 
while  I  swat  'em.  The  pill  ov«r  by  the  furnace  is  the  heater; 
his  name  is  Pafflow,  and  his  job  is  warming  up  the  rivets. 
Just  before  they  begin  to  sizzle  he  yanks  'em  out  with  the  tongs 
and  throws  'em  to  you.  You  ketch  'em  in  the  bucket — I 
hope,  and  take  'em  out  with  your  tongs  and  put  'em  in  the 
rivet-hole,  and  then  Zupnik  and  me  we  do  the  rest.  And  what 
do  we  call  you  ?  Miss  Webling  is  no  name  for  a  workin'-man." 

"My  name  is  Marie  Louise." 


THE    CUP   OF    FURY  303 

"Moll  is  enough." 

And  Moll  she  was  thenceforth. 

The  understanding  of  Mamise's  task  was  easier  than  its 
performance.  Pafflow  sent  the  rivets  to  her  fast  and  fleet, 
and  they  were  red-hot.  The  first  one  passed  her  and  struck 
Sutton.  His  language  blistered.  The  second  sizzled  against 
her  hip.  The  third  landed  in  the  pail  with  a  pleasant  clink, 
but  she  was  so  slow  in  getting  her  tongs  about  it,  and  fitting 
it  into  its  place,  that  it  was  too  cold  for  use.  This  threw  her 
into  a  state  of  hopelessness.  She  was  ready  to  resign. 

"I  think  I'd  better  go  back  to  crocheting,"  she  sighed. 

Sutton  gave  her  a  playful  shove  that  almost  sent  her  off 
the  platform: 

"Nah,  you  don't,  Moll.  You  made  me  chase  Snotty 
off  the  job,  and  you're  goin'  t'rough  wit'  it.  You  ain't  doin' 
no  worse  'n  I  done  meself  when  I  started  rivetin'.  Cheese !  but 
I  spoiled  so  much  work  I  got  me  tail  kicked  offen  me  a  dozen 
times!" 

This  was  politer  language  than  some  that  he  used.  His 
conversation  was  interspersed  with  words  that  no  one  prints. 
They  scorched  Mamise's  ears  like  red-hot  rivets  at  first,  but 
she  learned  to  accept  them  as  mere  emphasis.  And,  after  all, 
blunt  Anglo-Saxon  never  did  any  harm  that  Latin  paraphrase 
could  prevent. 

The  main  thing  was  Sutton's  rough  kindliness,  his  splendid 
efficiency,  and  his  infinite  capacity  for  taking  pains  with  each 
rivet-head,  hammering  it  home,  then  taking  up  his  pneumatic 
chipping-tool  to  trim  it  neat.  That  is  the  genius  and  the  glory 
of  the  artisan,  to  perfect  each  detail  ad  unguem,  like  a  poet 
truing  up  a  sonnet. 

Sutton  was  putting  in  thousands  on  thousands  of  rivets 
a  month,  and  every  one  of  them  was  as  important  to  him  as 
every  other.  He  feared  the  thin  knife-blade  of  the  rivet- 
tester  as  the  scrupulous  writer  dreads  the  learned  critic's 
scalpel. 

Mamise  was  dazed  to  learn  that  the  ship  named  after  her 
would  need  nearly  half  a  million  rivets,  each  one  of  them  neces 
sary  to  the  craft's  success.  The  thought  of  the  toil,  the  noise, 
the  sweat,  the  money  involved  made  the  work  a  sort  of  temple- 
building,  and  the  thought  of  Nicky  Easton's  ability  to  annul 
all  that  devout  accomplishment  in  an  instant  nauseated  her 
20 


3o4  THE    CUP    OF    FURY 

like  a  blasphemy.  She  felt  herself  a  priestess  in  a  holy  office 
and  renewed  her  flagging  spirits  with  prayers  for  strength  and 
consecration. 

But  few  of  the  laborers  had  Button's  pride  or  Mamise's 
piety  in  the  work.  Just  as  she  began  to  get  the  knack  of 
catching  and  placing  the  rivets  Pafflow  began  to  register  his 
protest  against  her  sex.  He  took  a  low  joy  in  pitching  rivets 
wild,  and  grinned  at  her  dancing  lunges  after  them. 

Mamise  would  not  tattle,  but  she  began  again  to  lose  heart. 
Button's  restless  appetite  for  rivets  noted  the  new  delay,  and 
he  grasped  the  cause  of  it  at  once.  His  first  comment  was 
to  walk  over  to  the  furnace  and  smash  Pafflow  in  the  nose. 

"You  try  any  of  that  I.  W.  W.  sabotodge  here,  you ,  and 

I'll  stuff  you  in  a  rivet-hole  and  turn  the  gun  loose  on  you." 

Pafflow  yielded  first  to  force  and  later  to  the  irresistible 
power  of  Mamise's  humility.  Indeed,  her  ardor  for  service 
warmed  his  indifferent  soul  at  last,  and  he  joined  with  her  to 
make  a  brilliant  team,  hurtling  the  rivets  in  red  arcs  from  the 
coke  to  the  pail  with  the  precision  of  a  professional  baseball 
battery. 

Mamise  eventually  acquired  a  womanly  deftness  in  pluck 
ing  up  the  rivet  and  setting  it  in  place,  and  Davidge  might 
have  seen  grounds  for  uneasiness  in  her  eager  submissiveness 
to  Sutton  as  she  knelt  before  him,  watched  his  eye  timidly, 
and  glowed  like  coke  under  the  least  breath  of  his  approval. 


CHAPTER   III 

SUTTON  was  a  mighty  man  in  his  way,  and  earning  a  wage 
that  would  have  been  accounted  princely  a  year  before.   All 
the  workers  were  receiving  immense  increase  of  pay,  but  the 
champion  riveters  were  lavishly  rewarded. 

The  whole  shipyard  industry  was  on  a  racing  basis.  Plans 
were  being  laid  to  celebrate  the  next  Fourth  of  July  with  an 
unheard-of  number  of  launchings.  Every  boat-building  com 
pany  was  trying  to  put  overboard  an  absolute  maximum  of 
hulls  on  that  day. 

"Hurry-up"  Hurley,  who  had  driven  the  first  rivets  into 
a  steel  ship  pneumatically,  and  Charles  M.  Schwab,  of  Bethle 
hem,  were  the  inspiring  leaders  in  the  rush,  and  their  ambition 
was  to  multiply  the  national  output  by  ten.  The  spirit  of 
emulation  thrilled  all  the  thrillable  workmen,  but  the  riveters 
were  the  spectacular  favorites.  Their  names  appeared  in  the 
papers  as  they  topped  each  other's  scores,  and  Sutton  kept 
outdoing  himself.  For  special  occasions  he  groomed  himself 
like  a  race-horse,  resting  the  day  before  the  great  event  and 
then  giving  himself  up  to  a  frenzy  of  speed. 

On  one  noble  day  of  nine  hours'  fury  he  broke  the  world's 
record  temporarily.  He  drove  four  thousand  eight  hundred 
and  seventy-five  three-quarter-inch  rivets  into  place.  Then 
he  was  carried  away  to  a  twenty-four-hour  rest,  like  an  ex 
hausted  prizefighter. 

That  was  one  of  the  great  days  in  Mamise's  history,  for 
she  was  permitted  to  assist  in  the  achievement,  and  she  was 
not  entirely  grateful  to  Davidge  for  suppressing  the  publica 
tion  of  her  name  alongside  Sutton's.  Her  photograph  ap 
peared  with  his  in  many  of  the  supplements,  but  nobody 
recognized  the  lilylike  beauty  of  Miss  Webling  in  the  smutty- 
faced  passer-boy  crouching  at  Sutton's  elbow.  The  publica 
tion  of  her  photograph  as  an  English  belle  had  made  history 


306  THE    CUP   OF    FURY 

for  her,  in  that  it  brought  Jake  Nuddle  into  her  life ;  but  this 
picture  had  no  follow-up  except  in  her  own  pride. 

This  rapture,  however,  long  postdated  her  first  adventure 
into  the  shipyard.  That  grim  period  of  eight  hours  was  an 
alternation  of  shame,  awkwardness,  stupidity,  failure,  fatigue, 
and  despair. 

She  did  not  even  wash  up  for  lunch,  but  picked  her  fodder 
from  her  pail  with  her  companions.  She  smoked  a  convivial 
cigarette  with  the  gang  and  was  proud  as  a  boy  among  grown 
ups.  She  even  wanted  to  be  tough  and  was  tempted  to  use 
ugly  words  in  a  swaggering  pride. 

But  after  her  lunch  it  was  almost  impossible  for  her  to  get 
up  and  go  back  to  her  task,  and  she  would  have  fainted  from 
sheer  weariness  except  that  she  had  forsworn  such  luxuries 
as  swoons. 

The  final  whistle  found  her  one  entire  neuralgia.  The  un 
ending  use  of  the  same  muscles,  the  repetition  of  the  same 
rhythmic  series,  the  cranium-shattering  clatter  of  all  the 
riveting-guns,  the  anxiety  to  be  sure  of  each  successive  rivet, 
quite  burned  her  out.  And  she  learned  that  the  reward  for 
this  ordeal  was,  according  to  the  minimum  wage-scale  adopted 
by  the  Emergency  Fleet  Corporation,  thirty  cents  an  hour 
for  eight  hours,  with  a  ten-per-cent.  increase  for  a  six-day 
week.  This  would  amount  to  all  of  two  dollars  and  sixty- 
four  cents  for  the  day,  and  fifteen  dollars  for  the  week ! 

It  was  munificent  for  a  passer-boy,  but  it  was  ruinous  for  a 
young  woman  of  independent  fortune  and  an  ambition  to 
look  her  best.  She  gasped  with  horror  when  she  realized  the 
petty  reward  for  such  prolonged  torment.  She  was  too  weary 
to  contrast  the  wage  with  the  prices  of  food,  fuel,  and  clothing. 
While  wages  climbed  expenses  soared. 

She  understood  as  never  before,  and  never  after,  why  labor 
is  discontent  and  why  it  is  so  easily  stirred  to  rebellion, 
why  it  feels  itself  the  exploited  slave  of  imaginary  tyrants. 
She  went  to  bed  at  eight  and  slept  in  the  deeps  of  sweat- 
earned  repose. 

The  next  morning,  getting  up  was  like  scourging  a  crowd 
of  fagged-out  children  to  school.  All  her  limbs  and  sundry 
muscles  whose  existence  she  had  never  realized  before  were 
like  separate  children,  each  aching  and  wailing:  "I  can't! 
I  won't!" 


THE    CUP   OF    FURY  307 

But  the  lameness  vanished  when  she  was  at  work  again, 
and  her  sinews  began  to  learn  their  various  trades  and  to 
manage  them  automatically.  She  grew  strong  and  lusty, 
and  her  task  grew  easy.  She  began  to  understand  that  while 
the  employee  has  troubles  enough  and  to  spare,  he  has  none 
of  the  torments  of  leadership;  he  is  not  responsible  for  the 
securing  of  contracts  and  materials,  for  borrowings  of  capital 
from  the  banks,  or  for  the  weekly  nightmare  of  meeting  the 
pay-roll.  There  are  two  hells  in  the  cosmos  of  manufacture: 
the  dark  pit  where  the  laborer  fights  the  tiny  worms  of  expense 
and  the  dizzy  crags  where  the  employer  battles  with  the 
dragons  of  aggregates. 

Mamise  saw  that  most  of  the  employees  were  employees 
because  they  lacked  the  self-starter  of  ambition.  They  were 
lazy-minded,  and  even  their  toiling  bodies  were  lazy.  For  all 
their  appearance  of  effort  they  did  not  ordinarily  attain  an 
efficiency  of  thirty  per  cent,  of  their  capabilities.  The  turn 
over  in  employment  was  three  times  what  it  should  have  been. 
Three  hundred  men  were  hired  for  every  hundred  steadily  at 
work,  and  the  men  at  work  did  only  a  third  of  the  work  they 
could  have  done.  The  total  wastefulness  of  man  rivaled  the 
ghastly  wastefulness  of  nature  with  spawn  and  energy. 

The  poor  toilers  were  more  reckless,  more  shiftless,  rela 
tively  more  dissipated,  than  the  idle  rich,  for  the  rich  ordina 
rily  squandered  only  the  interest  on  their  holdings,  while  the 
laborer  wasted  his  capital  in  neglecting  to  make  full  use  of 
his  muscle.  The  risks  they  took  with  life  and  limb  were 
amazing. 

On  Saturdays  great  numbers  quit  work  and  waited  for  their 
pay.  On  Mondays  the  force  was  greatly  reduced  by  absentees 
nursing  the  hang-over  from  the  Sunday  drunk,  and  of  those 
that  came  to  work  so  many  were  unfit  that  the  Monday 
accident  increase  was  proverbial. 

The  excuse  of  slavery  or  serfdom  was  no  longer  legitimate, 
though  it  was  loudly  proclaimed  by  the  agitators,  the  trade- 
union  editors,  and  the  parlor  reformers.  For,  say  what  they 
would,  labor  could  resign  or  strike  at  will ;  the  laborer  had  his 
vote  and  his  equality  of  opportunity.  He  was  free  even 
from  the  ordinary  obligations,  for  nobody  expected  the 
workman  to  make  or  keep  a  contract  for  his  services  after  it 
became  inconvenient  to  him. 


3o8  THE    CUP    OF    FURY 

There  were  bad  sports  among  them,  as  among  the  rich  and 
the  classes  between.  There  were  unions  and  individuals 
that  were  tyrants  in  power  and  cry-babies  in  trouble.  There 
was  much  cruelty,  trickery,  and  despotism  inside  the  unions — 
ferocious  jealousy  of  union  against  union,  and  mutual  de- 
structiveness. 

This  was,  of  course,  inevitable,  and  it  only  proved  that 
lying,  cheating,  and  bullying  were  as  natural  to  the  so-called 
"laborer"  as  to  the  so-called  "capitalist."  The  folly  is  in 
making  the  familiar  distinction  between  them.  Mamise  saw 
that  the  majority  of  manual  laborers  did  not  do  a  third  of  the 
work  they  might  have  done  and  she  knew  that  many  of  the 
capitalists  did  three  times  as  much  as  they  had  to. 

It  is  the  individual  that  tells  the  story,  and  Mamise,  who 
had  known  hard-working,  firm-muscled  men,  and  devoted 
mothers  and  pure  daughters  among  the  rich,  found  them  also 
among  the  poor,  but  intermingled  here,  as  above,  with  sots, 
degenerates,  child-beaters,  and  wantons. 

Mamise  learned  to  admire  and  to  be  fond  of  many  of  the 
men  and  their  families.  But  she  had  adventures  with  black 
guards,  rakes,  and  brutes.  She  was  lovingly  entreated  by 
many  a  dear  woman,  but  she  was  snubbed  and  slandered  by 
others  who  were  as  extravagant,  indolent,  and  immoral  as 
the  wives  and  daughters  of  the  rich. 

But  all  in  all,  the  ship-builders  loafed  horribly  in  spite  of 
the  poetic  inspiration  of  their  calling  and  the  prestige  of 
public  laudation;  in  spite  of  the  appeals  for  hulls  to  carry 
food  to  the  starving  and  troops  to  the  anxious  battle-front  of 
Europe.  In  spite  also  of  the  highest  wages  ever  paid  to  a 
craft,  they  kept  their  efficiency  at  a  lower  point  than  lower 
paid  workmen  averaged  in  the  listless  pre-war  days.  Yet  there 
was  no  lack  of  outcry  that  the  workman  was  throttled  and 
enslaved  by  the  greed  of  capital.  There  was  no  lack  of  outcry 
that  profiteers  were  bleeding  the  nation  to  death  and  making 
martyrs  of  the  poor. 

Most  of  the  capitalists  had  been  workmen  themselves  and 
had  risen  from  the  lethargic  mass  by  the  simple  expedient  of 
using  their  brains  for  schemes  and  making  their  muscles 
produce  more  than  the  average  output.  The  laborers  who 
failed  failed  because  when  they  got  their  eight-hour  day 
they  did  not  turn  their  leisure  to  production.  And  some  of 


THE    CUP   OF    FURY  309 

them  dared  to  claim  that  the  manual  toilers  alone  produced  the 
wealth  and  should  alone  be  permitted  to  enjoy  it,  as  if  it  were 
possible  or  desirable  to  choke  off  initiative  and  adventure  or 
to  devise  a  society  in  which  the  man  whose  ambition  is  to 
avoid  work  will  set  the  pace  for  the  man  who  loves  it  for 
itself  and  whose  discontent  goads  him  on  to  self -improvement ! 
As  if  it  were  possible  or  desirable  for  the  man  who  works  half 
heartedly  eight  hours  a  day  to  keep  down  the  man  who  works 
whole-souledly  eighteen  hours  a  day !  For  time  is  power. 

Even  the  benefits  the  modern  laborer  enjoys  are  largely 
the  result  of  intervention  in  his  behalf  by  successful  men  of 
enterprise  who  thrust  upon  the  toiler  the  comforts,  the  safe 
guards,  and  the  very  privileges  he  will  not  or  cannot  seek  for 
himself. 

During  the  war  the  employers  of  labor,  the  generals  of  these 
tremendous  armies,  were  everlastingly  alert  to  find  some 
means  to  stimulate  them  to  do  themselves  justice.  The  best 
artists  of  the  country  devised  eloquent  posters,  and  these  were 
stuck  up  everywhere,  reminding  the  laborer  that  he  was  the 
partner  of  the  soldier.  Orators  visited  the  yards  and  ha 
rangued  the  men.  After  each  appeal  there  was  a  brief  spurt 
of  enthusiasm  that  showed  what  miracles  could  be  accom 
plished  if  they  had  not  lapsed  almost  at  once  into  the  usual 
sullen  drudgery. 

There  were  appeals  to  thrift  also.  The  government  needed 
billions  of  dollars,  needed  them  so  badly  that  the  pennies  of 
the  poorest  man  must  be  sought  for.  Few  of  the  workmen 
had  the  faintest  idea  of  saving.  The  wives  of  some  of  them 
were  humbly  provident,  but  many  of  them  were  debt-runners 
in  the  shops  and  wasters  in  the  kitchens. 

A  gigantic  effort  was  put  forth  to  teach  the  American  people 
thrift.  The  idea  of  making  small  investments  in  government 
securities  was  something  new.  Bonds  were  supposed  to  be 
for  bankers  and  plutocrats.  Vast  campaigns  of  education 
were  undertaken,  and  the  rich  implored  the  poor  to  lay  aside 
something  for  a  rainy  day.  The  rich  invented  schemes  to 
wheedle  the  poor  to  their  own  salvation.  So  huge  had  been 
the  wastefulness  before  that  the  new  fashion  produced  billions 
upon  billions  of  investments  in  Liberty  Bonds,  and  hundreds 
of  millions  in  War  Savings  Stamps. 

Bands  of  missionaries  went  everywhere,  to  the  theaters, 


3io  THE    CUP   OF    FURY 

the  moving-picture  houses,  the  schools,  the  shops,  the  factories, 
preaching  the  new  gospel  of  good  business  and  putting  it 
across  in  the  name  of  patriotism. 

One  of  these  troupes  of  crusaders  marched  upon  Davidge's 
shipyard.  And  with  it  came  Nicky  Easton  at  last. 

Easton  had  deferred  his  advent  so  long  that  Mamise  and 
Davidge  had  come  almost  to  yearn  for  him  with  heartsick 
eagerness.  The  first  inkling  of  the  prodigal's  approach  was  a 
visit  that  Jake  Nuddle  paid  to  Mamise  late  one  evening.  She 
had  never  broached  to  him  the  matter  of  her  talk  with  Easton, 
waiting  always  for  him  to  speak  of  it  to  her.  She  was  amazed 
to  see  him  now,  and  he  brought  amazement  with  him. 

"I  just  got  a  call  on  long  distance,"  he  said,  "and  a  certain 
party  tells  me  you  was  one  of  us  all  this  time.  Why  didn't 
you  put  a  feller  wise?" 

Mamise  was  inspired  to  answer  his  reproach  with  a  better: 
"Because  I  don't  trust  you,  Jake.  You  talk  too  much." 

This  robbed  Jake  of  his  bluster  and  convinced  him  that 
the  elusive  Mamise  was  some  tremendous  super-spy.  He 
became  servile  at  once,  and  took  pride  in  being  the  lackey 
of  her  unexplained  and  unexplaining  majesty.  Mamise  liked 
him  even  less  in  this  rdle  than  the  other. 

She  took  his  information  with  a  languid  indifference,  as  if 
the  terrifying  news  were  simply  a  tiresome  confirmation  of  what 
she  had  long  expected.  Jake  was  tremulous  with  excitement 
and  approval. 

"Well,  well,  who'd  'a'  thought  our  little  Mamise  was  one 
of  them  slouch-hounds  you  read  about?  I  see  now  why 
you've  been  stringin'  that  Davidge  boob  along.  You  got 
him  eatin'  out  your  hand.  And  I  see  now  why  you  put  them 
jumpers  on  and  went  out  into  the  yards.  You  just  got  to 
know  everything,  ain't  you?" 

Mamise  nodded  and  smiled  felinely,  as  she  imagined  a 
queen  of  mystery  would  do.  But  as  soon  as  she  could  get  rid 
of  Jake  she  was  like  a  child  alone  in  a  graveyard. 

Jake  had  told  her  that  Nicky  would  be  down  in  a  few  days, 
and  not  to  be  surprised  when  he  appeared.  She  wanted  to 
get  the  news  to  Davidge,  but  she  dared  not  go  to  his  rooms 
so  late.  And  in  the  morning  she  was  due  at  her  job  of  passing 
rivets.  She  crept  into  bed  to  rest  her  dog-tired  bones  against 
the  morrow's  problems.  Her  dreams  were  all  of  death  and 


THE    CUP   OF    FURY  311 

destruction,  and  of  steel  ships  crumpled  like  balls  of  paper 
thrown  into  a  waste-basket. 

If  she  had  but  known  it,  Davidge  was  making  the  rounds 
of  his  sentry-line.  The  guard  at  one  gate  was  sound  asleep. 
He  found  two  others  playing  cards,  and  a  fourth  man  dead 
drunk. 

Inside  the  yards  the  great  hulls  rose  up  to  the  moon  like 
the  buttresses  of  a  cliff.  Only,  they  were  delicately  vulnerable, 
and  Europe  waited  for  them. 


CHAPTER   IV 

T^RUE  sleep  came  to  Mamise  so  late  that  her  alarm-clock 
1  could  hardly  awaken  her.  It  took  all  her  speed  to  get 
her  to  her  post.  She  dared  not  keep  Sutton  waiting,  and  fear 
of  the  time-clock  had  become  a  habit  with  her.  As  she  caught 
the  gleaming  rivets  and  thrust  them  into  their  sconces,  she 
wondered  if  all  this  toil  were  merely  a  waste  of  effort  to  give 
the  sarcastic  gods  another  laugh  at  human  folly. 

She  wanted  to  find  Pavidge  and  took  at  last  the  desperate 
expedient  of  pretended  sickness.  The  passer-boy  Snotty  was 
found  to  replace  her,  and  she  hurried  to  Davidge's  office. 

Miss  Gabus  stared  at  her  and  laughed.  "Tired  of  your 
rivetin'  a'ready?  Come  to  get  your  old  job  back?" 

Mamise  shook  her  head  and  asked  for  Davidge.  He  was 
outr— no,  not  out  of  town,  but  out  in  the  yard  or  the  shop  or 
up  in  the  mold-loft  or  somewheres,  she  reckoned. 

Mamise  set  out  to  find  him,  and  on  the  theory  that  among 
places  to  look  for  anything  or  anybody  the  last  should  be  first 
she  climbed  the  long,  long  stairs  to  the  mold-loft. 

He  was  not  among  the  acolytes  kneeling  at  the  templates; 
nor  was  he  in  the  cathedral  of  the  shop.  She  sought  him 
among  the  ships,  and  came  upon  him  at  last  talking  to  Jake 
Nuddle,  of  all  people! 

Nuddle  saw  Mamise  first  and  winked,  implying  that  he  also 
was  making  a  fool  of  Davidge.  Davidge  looked  sheepish, 
as  he  always  did  when  he  was  caught  in  a  benevolent  act. 

"I  was  just  talking  to  your  brother-in-law,  Miss  Webling," 
he  said,  "trying  to  drive  a  few  rivets  into  that  loose  skull. 
I  don't  want  to  fire  him,  on  your  account,  but  I  don't  see  why 
I  should  pay  an  I.  W.  W.  or  a  Bolshevist  to  poison  my 
men." 

Davidge  had  been  alarmed  by  the  ^difference  of  his  sen 
tinels.  He  thought  it  imbecile  to  employ  men  like  Nuddle  to 


THE    CUP   OF    FURY  313 

corrupt  the  men  within,  while  the  guards  admitted  any 
wanderer  from  without.  He  was  making  a  last  attempt  to 
convert  Nuddle  to  industry  for  Mamise's  sake,  trying  to 
pluck  this  dingy  brand  from  the  burning. 

' '  I  was  just  showing  Nuddle  a  little  bookkeeping  in  patriot 
ism,"  he  said.  ''The  Liberty  Loan  people  are  coming  here, 
and  I  want  the  yard  to  do  itself  proud.  Some  of  the  men 
and  women  are  going  without  necessities  to  help  the  govern 
ment,  while  Nuddle  and  some  others  are  working  for  the 
Kaiser.  This  is  the  record  of  Nuddle  and  his  crew: 

"  'Wages,  six  to  ten  dollars  a  day  guaranteed  by  the  govern 
ment.  Investment  in  Liberty  Bonds,  nothing;  purchases  of 
War  Savings  Stamps,  nothing;  contributions  to  Red  Cross, 
Y.  M.  C.  A.,  K.  of  C.,  J.  W.  B.,  Salvation  Army,  nothing; 
contributions  to  relief  funds  of  the  Allies,  nothing.  Time 
spent  at  drill,  none;  time  spent  in  helping  recruiting,  none. 
A  clean  sheet,  and  a  sheet  full  of  time  spent  in  interfering  with 
other  men's  work,  sneering  at  patriotism,  saying  the  Kaiser  is 
no  worse  than  the  Allies,  pretending  that  this  is  a  war  to  please 
the  capitalists,  and  that  a  soldier  is  a  fool.' 

"In  other  words,  Nuddle,  you  are  doing  the  Germans'  busi 
ness,  and  I  don't  intend  to  pay  you  American  money  any 
longer  unless  you  do  more  work  with  your  hands  and  less 
with  your  jaw." 

Nuddle  was  stupid  enough  to  swagger. 

"Just  as  you  say,  Davidge.  You'll  change  your  tune 
before  long,  because  us  workin'-men,  bein'  the  perdoocers,  are 
goin'  to  take  over  all  these  plants  and  run  'em  to  soot  our 
selves." 

"Fine!"  said  Davidge.  "And  will  you  take  over  my  loans 
at  the  banks  to  meet  the  pay-rolls?" 

"We'll  take  over  the  banks!"  said  Jake,  majestically. 
"We'll  take  over  everything  and  let  the  workin'-men  git  their 
doos  at  last." 

"What  becomes  of  us  wicked  plutocrats?" 

"We'll  have  you  workin'  for  us." 

"Then  we'll  be  the  workin'-men,  and  it  will  be  our  turn 
to  take  over  things  and  set  you  plutocrats  to  workin'  for  us, 
I  suppose.  And  we'll  be  just  where  we  are  now." 

This  was  growing  too  seesawy  for  Nuddle,  and  he  turned 
surly. 


3i4  THE    CUP   OF    FURY 

"Some  of  you  won't  be  in  no  shape  to  take  over 
nothin'." 

Davidge  laughed.  "It's  as  bad  as  that,  eh?  Well,  while 
I  can,  I'll  just  take  over  your  button." 

"You  mean  I'm  fired?" 

"Exactly,"  said  Davidge,  holding  out  his  hand  for  the 
badge  that  served  as  a  pass  to  the  yards  and  the  pay-roll. 
"Come  with  me,  and  you'll  get  what  money's  coming  to  you." 

This  struck  through  Nuddle's  thick  wits.  He  cast  a  glance 
of  dismay  at  Mamise.  If  he  were  discharged,  he  could  not 
help  Easton  with  the  grand  blow-up.  He  whined: 

"Ain't  you  no  regard  for  a  family  man?  I  got  a  wife  and 
kids  dependent  on  me." 

"Well,  do  what  Karl  Marx  did — let  them  starve  or  live  on 
their  own  money  while  you  prove  that  capital  is  as  he  said,  '  a 
vampire  of  dead  labor  sucking  the  life  out  of  living  labor.' 
Or  feed  them  on  the  wind  you  try  to  sell  me." 

"Aw,  have  a  heart!  I  talk  too  much,  but  I'm  all  right," 
Jake  pleaded. 

Davidge  relented  a  little.  "If  you'll  promise  to  give  your 
mouth  a  holiday  and  your  hands  a  little  work  I'll  keep  you 
to  the  end  of  the  month.  And  then,  on  your  way!" 

"All  right,  boss;  much  obliged,"  said  Jake,  so  relieved  at 
his  respite  that  he  bustled  away  as  if  victorious,  winking 
shrewdly  at  Mamise — who  winked  back,  with  some  difficulty. 

She  waited  till  he  was  a  short  distance  off,  then  she  mur 
mured,  quickly: 

"Don't  jump — but  Nicky  Easton  is  coming  here  in  the 
next  few  days;  I  don't  know  just  when.  He  told  Jake; 
Jake  told  me.  What  shall  we  do?" 

Davidge  took  the  blow  with  a  smile: 

"Our  little  guest  is  coming  at  last,  eh?  He  promised  to 
see  you  first.  I'll  have  Larrey  keep  close  to  you,  and  the 
first  move  he  makes  we'll  jump  him.  In  the  mean  while 
I'll  put  some  new  guards  on  the  job  and — well,  that's  about 
all  we  can  do  but  wait." 

"I  mustn't  be  seen  speaking  to  you  too  friendly.  Jake 
thinks  I'm  fooling  you." 

"God  help  me,  if  you  are,  for  I  love  you.  And  I  want 
you  to  be  careful.  Don't  run  any  risks.  I'd  rather  have  the 
whole  shipyard  smashed  than  your  little  finger." 


THE   CUP   OF    FURY  315 

"Thanks,  but  if  I  could  swap  my  life  for  one  ship  it  would 
be  the  best  bargain  I  ever  bought.  Good-by." 

As  she  ran  back  to  her  post  Davidge  smiled  at  the  woman- 
ishness  of  her  gait,  and  thought  of  Joan  of  Arc,  never  so 
lovably  feminine  as  in  her  armor. 


CHAPTER  V 

DAYS  of  harrowing  restiveness  followed,  Mamise  starting 
at  every  word  spoken  to  her,  leaping  to  her  feet  at  every 
step  that  passed  her  cottage,  springing  from  her  sleep  with  a 
cry,  "Who's  there!"  at  every  breeze  that  fumbled  a  shutter. 

But  nothing  happened ;  nobody  came  for  her. 

The  afternoon  of  the  Liberty  Loan  drive  was  declared  a 
half-holiday.  The  guards  were  doubled  at  the  gates,  and 
watchmen  moved  among  the  crowds;  but  strangers  were  ad 
mitted  if  they  looked  plausible,  and  several  motor-loads  of 
them  rolled  in.  Some  of  them  carried  bundles  of  circulars 
and  posters  and  application  blanks.  Some  of  them  were  of 
foreign  aspect,  since  a  large  number  of  the  workmen  had  to 
be  addressed  in  other  languages  than  English. 

Mamise  drifted  from  one  audience  to  another.  She  en 
countered  her  team-mate  Pafflow  and  tried  to  find  a  speaker 
who  was  using  his  language. 

At  length  a  voice  of  an  intonation  familiar  to  him  threw 
him  into  an  ecstasy.  What  was  jargon  to  Mamise  was  native 
music  to  him,  and  she  lingered  at  his  elbow,  pretending  to 
share  his  thrill  in  order  to  increase  it. 

She  felt  a  twitch  at  her  sleeve,  and  turned  idly. 

Nicky  Easton  was  at  her  side.  Her  mind,  all  her  minds, 
began  to  convene  in  alarm  like  the  crew  of  a  ship  attacked. 

"Nicky!"  she  gasped. 

"No  names,  pleass!    But  to  follow  me  quick." 

"I'm  right  with  you."  She  turned  to  follow  him.  "One 
minute."  She  stepped  back  and  spoke  fiercely  to  Pafflow. 
"Pafflow,  find  Mr.  Davidge.  Tell  him  Nicky  is  here.  Re 
member,  Nicky  is  here.  It's  life  and  death.  Find  him." 

Pafflow  mumbled,  "Nicky  is  here!"  and  Mamise  ran  after 
Nicky,  who  was  lugging  a  large  suit-case.  He  was  quivering 
with  excitement. 


THE    CUP   OF    FURY  3i/ 

"  I  didn't  knew  you  in  pentaloons,  but  Chake  Nuttle  pointet 
you  owit,"  he  laughed. 

' '  Wh- where  is  Jake  ? ' ' 

"He  goes  ahead  vit  a  boondle  of  bombs.  Nobody  is  on  the 
Schijj.  Ve  could  not  have  so  good  a  chence  again." 

Mamise  might  have,  ought  to  have,  seized  him  and  cried 
for  help;  but  she  could  not  somehow  throw  off  the  character 
she  had  assumed  with  Nicky.  She  obeyed  him  in  a  kind  of 
automatism.  Her  eyes  searched  the  crowd  for  Larrey,  who 
had  kept  all  too  close  to  her  of  recent  days  and  nights.  But 
he  had  fallen  under  the  hypnotism  of  some  too  eloquent  spell 
binder. 

Mamise  felt  the  need  of  doing  a  great  heroic  feat,  but  she 
could  not  imagine  what  it  might  be.  Pending  the  arrival 
from  heaven  of  some  superfeminine  inspiration,  she  simply 
went  along  to  be  in  at  the  death. 

Pafflow  was  a  bit  stupid  and  two  bits  stubborn.  He  puz 
zled  over  Mamise's  peculiar  orders.  He  wanted  to  hear  the 
rest  of  that  fiery  speech.  He  turned  and  stared  after  Mamise 
and  noted  the  way  she  went,  with  the  foppish  stranger  carry 
ing  the  heavy  baggage.  But  he  was  used  to  obeying  orders 
after  a  little  balking,  and  in  time  his  slow  brain  started  him 
on  the  hunt  for  Davidge.  He  quickened  his  pace,  and  asked 
questions,  being  put  off  or  directed  hither  and  yon. 

At  last  he  saw  the  boss  sitting  on  a  platform  behind  whose 
fluttering  bunting  a  white-haired  man  was  hurling  noises  at 
the  upturned  faces  of  the  throng.  Pafflow  supposed  that  his 
jargon  was  English. 

Getting  to  Davidge  was  not  easy.  But  Pafflow  was  stub 
born.  He  pushed  as  close  to  the  front  as  he  could,  and  there 
a  wall  of  bodies  held  him. 

The  orator  was  checked  in  full  career  with  almost  fatal 
results  by  the  sudden  bellowing  of  a  voice  from  the  crowd 
below.  He  supposed  that  he  was  being  heckled.  He  paused 
among  the  ruins  of  his  favorite  period,  and  said: 

"Well,  my  friend,  what  is  it?" 

Pafflow  ignored  him  and  shouted:  "Meesta  Davutch! 
O-o-h,  Meesta  Davutch.  Neecky  is  here." 

Davidge,  hearing  his  name  bruited,  rose  and  called  into  the 
mob,  "What's  that?" 

"Neecky  is  here." 


3i8  THE    CUP   OF    FURY 

When  Davidge  understood  he  was  staggered.  For  a  mo 
ment  he  stood  in  a  stupor.  Then  he  apologized  to  the  speaker. 
"An  emergency  call.  Please  forgive  me  and  go  right  on!" 

He  bowed  to  the  other  distinguished  guests  and  left  the 
platform.  Pafflow  found  him  and  explained. 

"Moll,  the  passer-boy,  my  gang,  she  say  find  you,  life  and 
death,  and  say  Neecky  is  here !  I  doan'  know  what  she  means, 
but  now  I  find  you." 

"Which  way — where — did  you — have  you  an  idea  where 
she  went?" 

"She  go  over  by  new  ship  Mamise — weeth  gentleman  all 
dressy  up." 

Davidge  ran  toward  the  scaffolding  surrounding  the  almost 
finished  hull.  He  recognized  one  or  two  of  his  plain-clothes 
guards  and  stopped  just  long  enough  to  tell  them  to  get  to 
gether  and  search  every  ship  at  once,  and  to  make  no  excite 
ment  about  it. 

The  scaffolding  was  like  a  jungle,  and  he  prowled  through 
it  with  caution  and  desperate  speed,  up  and  down  the  sway 
ing,  cleated  planks  and  in  and  out  of  the  hull. 

He  searched  the  hold  first,  expecting  that  Nicky  would 
naturally  plant  his  explosives  there.  That  indeed  was  his 
scheme,  but  Mamise  had  found  among  her  tumbled  wits  one 
little  idea  only,  and  that  was  to  delay  Nicky  as  long  as 
possible. 

She  suggested  to  him  that  before  he  began  to  lay  his  train 
of  wires  he  ought  to  get  a  general  view  of  the  string  of  ships. 
The  best  point  was  the  top  deck,  where  they  were  just  about 
to  hoist  the  enormous  rudder  to  the  stern-post. 

Nicky  accepted  the  suggestion,  and  Mamise  guided  him 
through  the  labyrinth.  They  had  met  Jake  at  the  base  of 
the  false-work,  and  he  came  along,  leaving  his  bundle.  Nicky 
carried  his  suit-case  with  him.  He  did  not  intend  to  be 
separated  from  it.  Jake  was  always  glad  to  be  separated 
from  work. 

They  made  the  climb,  and  Nicky's  artistic  soul  lingered  to 
praise  the  beautiful  day  for  the  beautiful  deed.  In  a  frenzy 
of  talk,  Mamise  explained  to  him  what  she  could.  She 
pointed  to  the  great  hatchway  for  the  locomotives  and  told 
him: 

"The  ship  would  have  been  in  the  water  now  if  it  weren't 


THE    CUP   OF    FURY  319 

for  that  big  hatch.  It  set  us — the  company  back  ninety 
days." 

"And  now  the  ship  goes  to  be  in  the  sky  in  about  nine 
minutes.  Come  along  once." 

"Look  down  here,  how  deep  it  is!"  said  Mamise,  and  led 
him  to  the  edge.  She  was  ready  to  thrust  him  into  the 
pit,  but  he  kept  a  firm  grip  on  a  rope,  and  she  sighed  with 
regret. 

But  Davidge,  looking  up  from  the  depth  of  the  well,  saw 
Nicky  and  Mamise  peering  over  the  edge.  His  face  vanished. 

"Who  iss?"  said  Nicky.  "Somebody  is  below  dere.  Who 
iss?" 

Mamise  said  she  did  not  know,  and  Jake  had  not  seen. 

Nicky  was  in  a  flurry.  The  fire  in  Davidge's  eyes  told  him 
that  Davidge  was  looking  for  him.  There  was  a  dull  sound 
in  the  hitherto  silent  ship  of  some  one  running. 

Nicky  grew  hysterical  with  wrath.  To  be  caught  at  the 
very  outset  of  his  elaborate  campaign  was  maddening.  He 
opened  his  suit-case,  took  out  from  the  protecting  wadding 
a  small  iron  death -machine  and  held  it  in  readiness.  A  noble 
plan  had  entered  his  brain  for  rescuing  his  dream. 

Nuddle,  glancing  over  the  side,  recognized  Davidge  and 
told  Nicky  who  it  was  that  came.  When  Davidge  reached  the 
top  deck,  he  found  Nicky  smiling  with  the  affability  of  a 
floorwalker. 

"Meester  Davitch — please,  one  momend.  I  holt  in  my 
hant  a  little  machine  to  blow  us  all  high-sky  if  you  are  so 
unkind  to  be  impolite.  You  move — I  srow.  We  all  go  up 
togedder  in  much  pieces.  Better  it  is  you  come  with  me  and 
make  no  trouble,  and  then  I  let  you  safe  your  life.  You  agree, 
yes?  Or  must  I  srow?" 

Davidge  looked  at  the  bomb,  at  Nicky,  at  Nuddle,  then 
at  Mamise.  Life  was  sweet  here  on  this  high  steel  crag,  with 
the  cheers  of  the  crowds  about  the  stands  coming  faintly  up 
on  the  delicious  breeze.  He  knew  explosives.  He  had  seen 
them  work.  He  could  see  what  that  handful  of  lightning  in 
Nicky's  grasp  would  do  to  this  mountain  he  had  built. 

Life  was  sweet  where  the  limpid  river  spread  its  indolent 
floods  far  and  wide.  And  Mamise  was  beautiful.  The  one 
thing  not  sweet  and  not  beautiful  was  the  triumph  of  this  sar 
donic  Hun. 

21 


320          THE   CUP   OF   FURY 

Davidge  pondered,  but  did  not  speak. 

With  all  the  superiority  of  the  Kultured  German  for  the 
untutored  Yankee,  Nicky  said,  "Veil?" 

Perhaps  it  was  the  V  that  did  it.  For  Davidge,  without  a 
word,  went  for  him. 


CHAPTER  VI 

'"PHE  most  tremendous  explosives  refuse  to  explode  unless 
1  some  detonator  like  fulminate  of  mercury  is  set  off  first. 
Each  of  us  has  his  own  fulminate,  and  the  snap  of  a  little 
cap  of  it  brings  on  our  cataclysm. 

It  was  a  pity,  seeing  how  many  Germans  were  alienated 
from  their  country  by  the  series  of  its  rulers'  crimes,  and  seeing 
how  many  German  names  were  in  the  daily  lists  of  our  dead, 
that  the  word  and  the  accent  grew  so  hateful  to  the  American 
people.  It  was  a  pity,  but  the  Americans  were  not  to  blame 
if  the  very  intonation  of  a  Teutonism  made  their  ears  tingle. 

Davidge  prized  life  and  had  no  suicidal  inclinations  or 
temptations.  No  imaginable  crisis  in  his  affairs  could  have 
convinced  him  to  self-slaughter.  He  was  brave,  but  cautious. 

Even  now,  if  Nicky  Easton,  poising  the  bombshell  with  its 
appalling  threat,  had  murmured  a  sardonic  "Well?"  Davidge 
would  probably  have  smiled,  shrugged,  and  said: 

"You've  got  the  bead  on  me,  partner.  I'm  yours."  He 
would  have  gone  along  as  Nicky's  prisoner,  waiting  some 
better  chance  to  recover  his  freedom. 

But  the  mal-pronunciation  of  the  shibboleth  strikes  deep 
centers  of  racial  feeling  and  makes  action  spring  faster  than 
thought.  The  Sicilians  at  vespers  asked  the  Frenchmen  to 
pronounce  "cheecheree,"  and  slew  them  when  they  said 
' '  sheesheree. ' '  So  Easton  snapped  a  fulminate  in  Davidge  when 
his  Prussian  tongue  betrayed  him  into  that  impertinent,  in 
tolerable  alien  "Veil?" 

Davidge  was  helpless  in  his  own  frenzy.     He  leaped. 

Nicky  could  not  believe  his  eyes.  He  paused  for  an  in 
stant's  consideration.  As  a  football-player  hesitates  a  six 
teenth  of  a  second  too  long  before  he  passes  the  ball  or  punts 
it,  and  so  forfeits  his  opportunity,  so  Nicky  Easton  stood  and 
stared  for  the  length  of  time  it  takes  the  eyes  to  widen. 

That  was  just  too  long  for  him  and  just  long  enough  for 


322  THE    CUP   OF    FURY 

Davidge,  who  went  at  him  football  fashion,  hurling  himself 
through  the  air  like  a  vast,  sprawling  tarantula.  Nicky's 
grip  on  the  bomb  relaxed.  It  fell  from  his  hand.  Davidge 
swiped  at  it  wildly,  smacked  it,  and  knocked  it  out  of  bounds 
beyond  the  deck.  Then  Davidge's  hundred-and-eighty- 
pound  weight  smote  the  light  and  wickery  frame  of  Nicky 
and  sent  him  collapsing  backward,  staggering,  wavering,  till 
he,  too,  went  overboard. 

Davidge  hit  the  deck  like  a  ball-player  sliding  for  a  base, 
and  he  went  slithering  to  the  edge.  He  would  have  followed 
Nicky  over  the  hundred-foot  steel  precipice  if  Mamise  had 
not  flung  herself  on  him  and  caught  his  heel.  He  was  stopped 
with  his  right  arm  dangling  out  in  space  and  his  head  at 
the  very  margin  of  the  deck. 

In  this  very  brief  meanwhile  Jake  Nuddle,  who  had  been 
panic-stricken  at  the  sight  of  the  bomb  in  Nicky's  hand,  had 
been  backing  away  slowly.  He  would  have  backed  into  the 
abyss  if  he  had  not  struck  a  stanchion  and  clutched  it  des 
perately. 

And  now  the  infernal-machine  reached  bottom.  It  lighted 
on  the  huge  blade  of  the  ship's  anchor  lying  on  a  wharf  wait 
ing  to  be  hoisted  into  place.  The  shell  burst  with  an  all- 
rending  roar  and  sprayed  rags  of  steel  in  every  direction. 
The  upward  stream  caught  Nicky  in  midair  and  shattered 
him  to  shreds. 

Nuddle's  whole  back  was  obliterated  and  half  a  corpse 
fell  forward,  headless,  on  the  deck.  Davidge's  right  arm  was 
ripped  from  the  shoulder  and  his  hat  vanished,  all  but  the 
brim. 

Mamise  was  untoucned  by  the  bombardment,  but  the  down 
ward  rain  of  fragments  tore  her  flesh  as  she  lay  sidelong. 

The  bomb,  exploding  in  the  open  air,  lost  much  of  its 
efficiency,  but  the  part  of  the  ship  nearest  was  crumpled  like 
an  old  tomato-can  that  a  boy  has  placed  on  a  car  track  to 
be  run  over. 

The  crash  with  its  reverberations  threw  the  throngs  about 
the  speakers'  stands  into  various  panics,  some  running  away 
from  the  volcano,  some  toward  it.  Many  people  were 
knocked  down  and  trampled. 

Larrey  and  his  men  were  the  first  to  reach  the  deck.  They 
found  Davidge  and  Mamise  in  a  pool  of  blood  rapidly  enlarg- 


THE    CUP    OF    FURY  323 

ing  as  the  torn  arteries  in  Davidge's  shoulder  spouted  his  life 
away.  A  quick  application  of  first  aid  saved  him  until  the 
surgeon  attached  to  the  shipyard  could  reach  him. 

Mamise's  injuries  were  painful  and  cruel,  but  not  dangerous. 
Of  Jake  Nuddle  there  was  not  enough  left  to  assure  Larrey  of 
his  identification.  Of  Nicky  Easton  there  was  so  little  trace 
that  the  first  searchers  did  not  know  that  he  had  perished. 

Davidge  and  Mamise  were  taken  to  the  hospital,  and 
when  Davidge  was  restored  to  consciousness  his  first  words 
were  a  groan  of  awful  satisfaction: 

"I  got  a  German!" 

When  he  learned  that  he  had  no  longer  a  right  arm  he 
smiled  again  and  muttered: 

"It's  great  to  be  wounded  for  your  country." 

Which  was  a  rather  inelegant  paraphrase  of  the  classic 
"Duke  et  decorum,"  but  caught  its  spirit  admirably. 

Of  Jake  Nuddle  he  knew  nothing  and  forgot  everything 
till  some  days  later,  when  he  was  permitted  to  speak  to  Ma 
mise,  in  whose  welfare  he  was  more  interested  than  his  own,  and 
the  story  of  whose  unimportant  wounds  harrowed  him  more 
than  his  own. 

Her  voice  came  to  him  over  the  bedside  telephone.  After 
an  exchange  of  the  inevitable  sympathies  and  regrets  and 
tendernesses,  Mamise  sighed: 

"Well,  we're  luckier  than  poor  Jake." 

"We  are?     What  happened  to  him?" 

"He  was  killed,  horribly.  His  pitiful  wife!  Abbie  has 
been  here  and  she  is  inconsolable.  He  was  her  idol — not  a 
very  pretty  one,  but  idols  are  not  often  pretty.  It's  too 
terribly  bad,  isn't  it?" 

Davidge's  bewildered  silence  was  his  epitaph  for  Jake. 
Even  though  he  were  dead,  one  could  hardly  praise  him,  though, 
now  that  he  was  dead.  Davidge  felt  suddenly  that  he  must 
have  been  indeed  the  first  and  the  eternal  victim  of  his  own 
qualities. 

Jake  had  been  a  complainer,  a  cynic,  a  loafer  always  from 
his  cradle  on — indeed,  his  mother  used  to  say  that  he  nearly 
kicked  her  to  death  before  he  was  born. 

Mamise  had  hated  and  loathed  him,  but  she  felt  now  that 
Abbie  had  been  righter  than  she  in  loving  the  wretch  who  had 
been  dowered  with  no  beauty  of  soul  or  body. 


324  THE    CUP   OF    FURY 

She  waited  for  Davidge  to  say  something.  After  a  long 
silence,  she  asked : 

"Are  you  there?" 

"Yes." 

"You  don't  say  anything  about  poor  Jake." 

"I — I  don't  know  what  to  say." 

He  felt  it  hateful  to  withhold  praise  from  the  dead,  and 
yet  a  kind  of  honesty  forced  him  to  oppose  the  habit  of  laud 
ing  all  who  have  just  died,  since  it  cheapened  the  praise  of 
the  dead  who  deserve  praise — or  what  we  call  "deserve." 

Mamise  spoke  in  a  curiously  unnatural  tone:  "It  was 
noble  of  poor  Jake  to  give  his  life  trying  to  save  the  ship, 
wasn't  it?" 

"What's  that?"  said  Davidge,  and  she  spoke  with  labored 
precision. 

"I  say  that  you  and  I,  who  were  the  only  witnesses,  feel 
sorry  that  poor  Jake  had  to  be  killed  in  the  struggle  with 
Easton." 

"Oh,  I  see!    Yes — yes,"  said  Davidge,  understanding. 

Mamise  went  on :  "Mr.  Larrey  was  here  and  he  didn't  know 
who  Jake  was  till  I  told  him  how  he  helped  you  try  to  dis 
arm  Nicky.  It  will  be  a  fine  thing  for  poor  Abbie  and  her 
children  to  remember  that,  won't  it?" 

Davidge's  heart  ached  with  a  sudden  appreciation  of  the 
sweet  purpose  of  Mamise's  falsehood. 

"Yes,  yes,"  he  said.  "I'll  give  Abbie  a  pension  on  his 
account." 

"  That's  beautiful  of  you !" 

And  so  it  was  done.  It  pleased  a  sardonic  fate  to  let  Jake 
Nuddle  pose  in  his  tomb  as  the  benefactor  he  had  always 
pretended  to  be. 

The  operative,  Larrey,  had  made  many  adverse  reports 
against  him,  but  in  the  blizzard  of  reports  against  hundreds 
of  thousands  of  suspects  that  turned  the  Department  of 
Justice  files  into  a  huge  snowdrift  these  earlier  accounts  of 
Nuddle's  treasonable  utterances  and  deeds  were  forgotten. 

The  self-destruction  of  Nicky  Easton  took  its  brief  space  in 
the  newspapers  overcrowded  with  horrors,  and  he,  too,  was 
all  but  forgotten. 

When,  after  some  further  time,  Mamise  was  able  to  call 
upon  Davidge  in  her  wheeled  chair,  she  found  him  strangely 


THE    CUP   OF    FURY  325 

lacking  in  cordiality.  She  was  bitterly  hurt  at  first,  until 
she  gleaned  from  his  manner  that  he  was  trying  to  remove 
himself  gracefully  from  her  heart  because  of  his  disability. 

She  amazed  him  by  her  sudden  laughter.  He  was  always 
slow  to  understand  why  his  most  solemn  or  angry  humor  gave 
her  so  much  amusement. 

While  her  nurse  and  his  were  talking  at  a  little  distance  it 
pleased  her  to  lean  close  to  Davidge  and  tease  him  excruciat 
ingly  with  a  flirtatious  manner. 

"Before  very  long  I'm  going  to  take  up  that  bet  we  made." 

"What  bet?" 

"That  the  next  proposal  would  come  from  me.  I'm  going 
to  propose  the  first  of  next  week." 

"If  you  do,  I'll  refuse  you." 

Though  she  understood  him  perfectly,  it  pleased  her  to 
assume  a  motive  he  had  never  dreamed  of. 

"Oh,  you  mustn't  think  that  I'm  going  to  be  an  invalid  for 
life.  The  doctor  says  I'll  be  as  well  as  ever  in  a  little  while." 

Davidge  could  not  see  how  he  was  to  tell  her  that  he  didn't 
mean  that  without  telling  her  just  what  he  did  mean.  In  his 
tormented  petulance  he  turned  his  back  on  her  and  groaned. 

"Oh,  go  away  and  let  me  alone." 

She  was  laughing  beyond  the  limits  called  ladylike  as  she 
began  to  wheel  her  chair  toward  the  door.  The  nurse  ran 
after  her,  asking: 

"What  on  earth?" 

Mamise  assured,  "Nothing  on  earth,  but  a  lot  in  heaven," 
and  would  not  explain  the  riddle. 


CHAPTER  VII 

DAVIDGE  was  the  modern  ideal  of  an  executive.  He 
appeared  never  to  do  any  work.  He  kept  an  empty 
desk  and  when  he  was  away  no  one  missed  him.  He  would 
not  use  a  roll-top  desk,  but  sat  at  a  flat  table  with  nothing 
on  it  but  a  memorandum-pad,  a  calendar,  an  "in"  and  an 
"out"  basket,  both  empty  most  of  the  time. 

He  had  his  work  so  organized  that  it  went  on  in  his  absence 
as  if  he  were  there.  He  insisted  that  the  executives  of  the 
departments  should  follow  the  same  rule.  If  they  were 
struck  down  in  battle  their  places  were  automatically  supplied 
as  in  the  regular  army. 

So  when  Davidge  went  to  the  hospital  the  office  machine 
went  on  as  if  he  had  gone  to  lunch. 

Mamise  called  on  him  oftener  than  he  had  called  on  her. 
She  left  the  hospital  in  a  few  days  after  the  explosion,  but 
she  did  not  step  into  his  office  and  run  the  corporation  for 
him  as  a  well-regulated  heroine  of  recent  fiction  would  have 
done.  She  did  not  feel  that  she  knew  enough.  And  she 
did  not  know  enough.  She  kept  to  her  job  with  the  riveting- 
gang  and  expected  to  be  discharged  any  day  for  lack  of  pull 
with  the  new  boss. 

But  while  she  lasted  she  was  one  of  the  gang,  and  proud  of 
it.  She  was  neither  masculine  nor  feminine,  but  human. 
As  Vance  Thompson  has  said,  the  lioness  is  a  lion  all  but  a 
little  of  the  time,  and  so  Mamise  put  off  sexlessness  with  her 
overalls  and  put  it  on  with  her  petticoats.  She  put  off  the 
coarseness  at  the  same  time  as  she  scrubbed  away  the  grime. 

The  shipyard  was  still  a  realm  of  faery  to  her.  It  was  an  un 
ending  experience  of  miracles,  commonplace  to  the  men,  but 
wonder-work  to  her.  She  had  not  known  what  "pneumatic" 
or  "hydraulic"  really  meant.  The  acetylene  flame-knife,  the 
incomprehensible  ability  of  levers  to  give  out  so  much  more 
power  than  was  put  in  them,  dazed  her.  Nothing  in  the 


THE   CUP   OF   FURY  327 

Grimms'  stories  could  parallel  the  benevolent  ogres  of  air 
and  water  and  their  dumfounding  transformations. 

She  learned  that  machinery  can  be  as  beautiful  as  any  other 
human  structure.  Fools  and  art-snobs  had  said  that  ma 
chinery  is  ugly,  and  some  of  it  is  indeed  nearly  as  ugly  as 
some  canvases,  verses,  and  cathedrals.  Other  small -pates 
chattered  of  how  the  divine  works  of  nature  shamed  the 
crudities  of  man.  They  spoke  of  the  messages  of  the  moun 
tains,  the  sublimities  of  sunsets,  and  the  lessons  taught  by 
the  flowerets.  These  things  are  impressive,  but  it  ought  to  be 
possible  to  give  them  praise  without  slandering  man's  crea 
tions,  for  a  God  that  could  make  a  man  that  could  make  a 
work  of  art  would  have  to  be  a  better  God  than  one  who 
could  merely  make  a  work  of  art  himself. 

But  machinery  has  its  messages,  too.  It  enables  the 
little  cave-dweller  to  pulverize  the  mountain;  to  ship  it  to 
Mohammed  in  Medina;  to  pick  it  up  and  shoot  it  at  his 
enemies. 

Mamise,  at  any  rate,  was  so  enraptured  by  the  fine  art  of 
machinery  that  when  she  saw  a  traveling-crane  pick  up  a 
mass  of  steel  and  go  down  the  track  with  it  to  its  place, 
she  thought  that  no  poplar-tree  was  ever  so  graceful.  And 
the  rusty  hulls  of  the  new  ships  showing  the  sky  through  the 
steel  lace  of  their  rivetless  sides  were  fairer  than  the  sky. 

Surgeons  in  steel  operated  on  the  battered  epidermis  of  the 
Mamise  and  sewed  her  up  again.  It  was  slow  work  and  it 
had  all  the  discouraging  influence  of  work  done  twice  for  one 
result.  But  the  toil  went  on,  and  when  at  last  Davidge  left 
the  hospital  he  was  startled  by  the  change  in  the  vessel.  As 
a  father  who  has  left  a  little  girl  at  home  comes  back  to  find 
her  a  grown  woman,  so  he  saw  an  almost  finished  ship  where 
he  had  left  a  patchwork  of  iron  plates. 

It  thrilled  him  to  be  back  at  work  again.  The  silence  of 
the  hospital  had  irked  his  soul.  Here  the  air  was  full  of  the 
pneumatic  riveter.  They  called  it  the  gun  that  would  win 
the  war.  The  shipyard  atmosphere  was  shattered  all  day  long 
as  if  with  machine-gun  fire  and  the  riveters  were  indeed  firing 
at  Germany.  Every  red-hot  rivet  was  a  bullet's  worth. 

The  cry  grew  louder  for  ships.  The  submarine  was  cut 
ting  down  the  world's  whole  fleet  by  a  third.  In  February 
the  Germans  sank  the  Tuscania,  loaded  with  American  sol- 


328  THE    CUP    OF    FURY 

diers,  and  159  of  them  were  lost.  Uncle  Sam  tightened  his 
lips  and  added  the  Tuscanias  dead  soldiers  to  the  Lusitania's 
men  and  women  and  children  on  the  invoice  against  Germany. 
He  tightened  his  belt,  too,  and  cut  down  his  food  for  Europe's 
sake.  He  loosened  his  purse-strings  and  poured  out  gold  and 
bonds  and  war-savings  stamps,  borrowing,  lending,  and 
spending  with  the  desperation  of  a  gambler  determined  to 
break  the  bank. 

While  Davidge  was  still  in  the  hospital  the  German  offen 
sive  broke.  It  succeeded  beyond  the  scope  of  the  blackest 
prophecy.  It  threw  the  fear  of  hell  into  the  stoutest  hearts. 
All  over  the  country  people  were  putting  pins  in  maps,  always 
putting  them  farther  back.  Everybody  talked  strategy,  and 
geography  became  the  most  dreadful  of  topics. 

On  March  2gth  Pershing  threw  what  American  troops  were 
abroad  into  the  general  stock,  gave  them  to  Haig  and  Foch 
to  use  as  they  would. 

On  the  same  day  the  mysterious  giant  cannon  of  the  Ger 
mans  sent  a  shell  into  Paris,  striking  a  church  and  killing 
seventy-five  worshipers.  And  it  was  on  a  Good  Friday  that 
the  men  of  Gott  sent  this  harbinger  of  good- will. 

The  Germans  began  to  talk  of  the  end  of  Great  Britain, 
the  erasure  of  France,  and  the  reduction  of  America  to  her 
proper  place. 

Spring  came  to  the  dismal  world  again  with  a  sardonic 
smile.  In  Washington  the  flower-duel  was  renewed  between 
the  Embassy  terrace  and  the  Louise  Home.  The  irises  made 
a  drive  and  the  forsythia  sent  up  its  barrage.  The  wistaria 
and  the  magnolia  counterattacked.  The  Senator  took  off 
his  wig  again  to  give  official  sanction  to  summer  and  to  rub 
his  bewildered  head  the  better. 

The  roving  breezes  fluttered  tragic  newspapers  everywhere 
— in  the  parks,  on  the  streets,  on  the  scaffolds  of  the  buildings, 
along  the  tented  lanes,  and  in  the  barrack-rooms. 

This  wind  was  a  love-zephyr  as  of  old.  But  the  world  was 
frosted  with  a  tremendous  fear.  What  if  old  England  fell? 
Empires  did  fall.  Nineveh,  Babylon,  and  before  them  Ur 
and  Nippur,  and,  after,  Persia  and  Alexander's  Greece  and 
Rome.  Germany  was  making  the  great  try  to  renew  Rome's 
sway;  her  Emperor  called  himself  the  Caesar.  What  if  he 
should  succeed? 


THE    CUP   OF    FURY  329 

Distraught  by  so  many  successes,  the  Germans  grew  frantic. 
They  were  diverted  from  one  prize  to  another. 

The  British  set  their  backs  to  the  wall.  The  French  re 
peated  their  Verdun  watchword,  "No  thoroughfare,"  and  the 
Americans  began  to  come  up.  The  Allies  were  driven  finally 
to  what  they  had  always  realized  to  be  necessary,  but  had 
never  consented  to — a  unified  command.  They  put  all  their 
destinies  into  the  hands  of  Foch. 

Instantly  and  melodramatically  the  omens  changed.  Foch 
could  live  up  to  his  own  motto  now,  "Attack,  attack,  attack." 
He  had  been  like  a  man  gambling  his  last  francs.  Now  he 
had  word  that  unlimited  funds  were  on  the  way  from  his 
Uncle  Sam.  He  did  not  have  to  count  his  money  over  and 
over.  He  could  squander  it  regardless. 

In  every  direction  he  attacked,  attacked,  attacked.  The 
stupefied  world  saw  the  German  hordes  checked,  driven  rear 
ward,  here,  there,  the  other  place. 

Towns  were  redeemed,  rivers  regained,  prisoners  scooped 
up  by  the  ten  thousand.  The  pins  began  a  great  forward 
march  along  the  maps.  People  fought  for  the  privilege  of 
placing  them.  Geography  became  the  most  fascinating  sport 
ever  known. 

Davidge  had  come  from  the  hospital  minus  one  arm  just  as 
the  bulletins  changed  from  grave  to  gay.  He  was  afraid  now 
that  the  war  would  be  over  before  his  ships  could  share  the 
glorious  part  that  ships  played  in  all  this  victory.  The 
British  had  turned  all  their  hulls  to  the  American  shores  and 
the  American  troops  were  pouring  into  them  in  unbelievable 
floods. 

Secrecy  lost  its  military  value.  The  best  strategy  that 
could  be  devised  was  to  publish  just  how  many  Americans 
were  landing  in  France. 

General  March  would  carry  the  news  to  Secretary  Baker 
and  he  would  scatter  it  broadcast  through  George  Creel's 
Committee  on  Public  Information,  using  telegraph,  wireless, 
telephone,  cable,  post-office,  placard,  courier. 

Davidge  had  always  said  that  the  war  would  be  over 
as  soon  as  the  Germans  got  the  first  real  jolt.  With  them  war 
was  a  business  and  they  would  withdraw  from  it  the  moment 
they  foresaw  a  certain  bankruptcy  ahead. 

But  there  was  the  war  after  the  war  to  be  considered — the 


330  THE    CUP   OF    FURY 

war  for  commerce,  the  postponed  war  with  disgruntled  labor 
and  the  impatient  varieties  of  socialists  and  with  the  rabid 
Bolshevists  frankly  proclaiming  their  intention  to  destroy 
civilization  as  it  stood. 

Like  a  prudent  skipper,  Davidge  began  to  trim  his  ship  for 
the  new  storm  that  must  follow  the  old.  He  took  thought 
of  the  rivalries  that  would  spring  up  inevitably  between  the 
late  Allies,  like  brothers  now,  but  doomed  to  turn  upon  one 
another  with  all  the  greater  bitterness  after  war.  For  peace 
hath  her  wickedness  no  less  renowned  than  war. 

What  would  labor  do  when  the  spell  of  consecration  to  the 
war  was  gone  and  the  pride  of  war  wages  must  go  before  a 
fall?  The  time  would  come  abruptly  when  the  spectacle 
of  employers  begging  men  to  work  at  any  price  would  be 
changed  to  the  spectacle  of  employers  having  no  work  for 
men — at  any  price. 

The  laborers  would  not  surrender  without  a  battle.  They 
had  tasted  power  and  big  money  and  they  would  not  be  lulled 
by  economic  explanations. 

Mamise  came  upon  Davidge  one  day  in  earnest  converse 
with  a  faithful  old  toiler  who  had  foreseen  the  same  situation 
and  wanted  to  know  what  his  bo  s  thought  about  it. 

Iddings  had  worked  as  a  mechanic  all  his  life.  He  had 
worked  hard,  had  lived  sober,  had  turned  his  wages  over  to 
his  wife,  and  spent  them  on  his  home  and  his  children. 

He  was  as  good  a  man  as  could  be  found.  Latterly  he  had 
been  tormented  by  two  things,  the  bitterness  of  increasing 
infirmities  and  dwindling  power  and  the  visions  held  out  to 
him  by  Jake  Nuddle  and  the  disciples  Jake  had  formed  before 
he  was  taken  away. 

As  Mamise  came  up  in  her  overalls  Iddings  was  saying: 

"It  ain't  right,  boss,  and  you  know  it.  When  a  man  like 
me  works  as  hard  as  I  done  and  cuts  out  all  the  fun  and  the 
booze  and  then  sees  old  age  comin'  on  and  nothin'  saved  to 
speak  of  and  no  chance  to  save  more  'n  a  few  hundred  dollars, 
whilst  other  men  has  millions — why,  I'm  readin'  the  other 
day  of  a  woman  spendin'  eighty  thousand  dollars  on  a  fur 
coat,  and  my  old  woman  slavin'  like  a  horse  all  her  life  and 
goin'  round  in  a  plush  rag — I  tell  you  it  ain't  right  and  you 
can't  prove  it  is." 

"I'm  not  going  to  try  to,"  said  Davidge.     "I  didn't  build 


THE    CUP   OF    FURY  331 

the  world  and  I  can't  change  it  much.  I  see  nothing  but 
injustice  everywhere  I  look.  It's  not  only  among  men,  but 
among  animals  and  insects  and  plants.  The  weeds  choke  out 
the  flowers ;  the  wolves  eat  up  the  sheep  unless  the  dogs  fight 
the  wolves;  the  gentle  and  the  kind  go  under  unless  they're 
mighty  clever.  They  call  it  the  survival  of  the  fittest,  but 
it's  really  the  survival  of  the  fightingest." 

"That's  what  I'm  comin'  to  believe,"  said  Iddings.  "The 
workman  will  never  get  his  rights  unless  he  fights  for  'em." 

"Never." 

"And  if  he  wants  to  get  rich  he's  got  to  fight  the  rich." 

"No.  He  wants  to  make  sure  he's  fighting  his  real  enemies 
and  fighting  with  weapons  that  won't  be  boomerangs." 

"I  don't  get  that  last." 

"Look  here,  Iddings,  there  are  a  lot  of  damned  fools  filling 
workmen's  heads  with  insanity,  telling  them  that  their  one 
hope  of  happiness  is  to  drag  down  the  rich,  to  blow  up  the 
factories  or  take  control  of  'em,  to  bankrupt  the  bankers  and 
turn  the  government  upside  down.  If  they  can't  get  a 
majority  at  the  polls  they  won't  pay  any  attention  to  the 
polls  or  the  laws.  They'll  butcher  the  police  and  assassinate 
the  big  men.  But  that  game  can't  win.  It's  been  tried  again 
and  again  by  discontented  idiots  who  go  out  and  kill  instead 
of  going  out  to  work. 

"You  can't  get  rich  by  robbing  the  rich  and  dividing  up 
their  money.  If  you  took  all  that  Rockefeller  is  said  to  have 
and  divided  it  up  among  the  citizens  of  the  country  you'd 
get  four  or  five  dollars  apiece  at  most,  and  you'd  soon  lose 
that. 

"Rockefeller  started  as  a  laboring-man  at  wages  you 
wouldn't  look  at  to-day.  The  laboring-men  alongside  could 
have  made  just  as  much  as  he  did  if  they'd  a  mind  to.  Some 
body  said  he  could  have  written  Shakespeare's  plays  if  he 
had  a  mind  to,  and  Lamb  said,  'Yes,  if  you'd  a  mind  to.' 
The  thing  seems  to  be  to  be  born  with  a  mind  to  and  to 
cultivate  a  mind  to. 

"You  take  Rockefeller's  money  away  and  he'll  make  more 
while  you're  fumbling  with  what  you've  got.  Take  Shake 
speare's  plays  away  and  he'll  write  others  while  you're  scratch 
ing  your  head. 

"Don't  let  'em  fool  you,  Iddings,  into  believing  that  rich 


332  THE    CUP   OF    FURY 

men  get  rich  by  stealing.  We  all  cheat  more  or  less,  but  no 
man  ever  built  up  a  big  fortune  by  plain  theft.  Men  make 
money  by  making  it. 

"Karl  Marx,  who  wrote  your  'Workmen's  Bible,'  called 
capital  a  vampire.  Well,  there  aren't  any  vampires  except 
in  the  movies. 

"Speaking  of  vamping  wealth,  did  you  ever  hear  how  I 
got  where  I  am? — not  that  it's  so  very  far  and  not  that  I 
like  to  talk  about  myself — but  just  to  show  you  how  true 
your  man  Marx  is. 

"  I  was  a  working-man  and  worked  hard.  I  put  by  a  little 
out  of  what  I  made.  Of  nights  I  studied.  I  learned  all  ends 
of  the  ship-building  business  in  a  way.  But  I  needed  money 
to  get  free.  It  never  occurred  to  me  to  claim  somebody  else's 
money  as  mine.  I  thought  the  rich  would  help  me  to  get  rich 
if  I  helped  them  to  geb  richer.  My  idea  of  getting  capital  was 
to  go  get  it.  I  was  a  long  time  finding  where  there  was  any. 

"By  and  by  I  heard  of  an  old  wreck  on  the  coast — a  steamer 
had  run  aground  and  the  hull  was  abandoned  after  they  took 
out  what  machinery  they  could  salvage.  The  hull  stood  up 
in  the  storms  and  the  sand  began  to  bury  it.  It  would  have 
been  'dead  capital'  then  for  sure. 

"The  timbers  were  sound,  though,  and  I  found  I  could 
buy  it  cheap.  I  put  in  all  I  had  saved  in  all  my  life,  eight 
thousand  dollars,  for  the  hull.  I  got  a  man  to  risk  something 
with  me. 

"We  took  the  hull  off  the  ground,  refitted  it,  stepped  in 
six  masts,  and  made  a  big  schooner  of  her. 

"She  cost  us  sixty  thousand  dollars  all  told.  Before  she 
was  ready  to  sail  we  sold  her  for  a  hundred  and  twenty 
thousand.  The  buyers  made  big  money  out  of  her.  The 
schooner  is  carrying  food  now  and  giving  employment  to 
sailors. 

"Who  got  robbed  on  that  transaction?  Where  did  'dead 
labor  suck  the  life  out  of  living  labor,'  as  Karl  Marx  says? 
You  could  do  the  same.  You  could  if  you  would.  There's 
plenty  of  old  hulls  lying  around  on  the  sands  of  the  world." 

Iddings  had  nothing  in  him  to  respond  to  the  poetry  of  this. 

"That's  all  very  fine,"  he  growled,  "but  where  would  I 
get  my  start?  I  got  no  eight  thousand  or  anybody  to  lend 
me  ten  dollars." 


THE   CUP   OF   FURY  333 

'"The  banks  will  lend  to  men  who  will  make  money  make 
money.     It's  not  the  guarantee  they  want  so  much  as  in 
spiration.     Pierpont  Morgan  said  he  lent  on  character,  not  on 
collateral." 
.  "Morgan,  humph!" 

"The  trouble  isn't  with  Morgan,  but  with  you.  What 
do  you  do  with  your  nights?  Study?  study?  beat  your 
brains  for  ideas?  No,  you  go  home,  tired,  play  with  the 
children,  talk  with  the  wife,  smoke,  go  to  bed.  It's  a  beautiful 
life,  but  it's  not  a  money-making  life.  You  can't  make 
money  by  working  eight  hours  a  day  for  another  man's  money. 
You've  got  to  get  out  and  find  it  or  dig  it  up. 

"That  business  with  the  old  hull  put  me  on  my  feet,  put 
dreams  in  my  head.  I  looked  about  for  other  chances,  took 
some  of  them  and  wished  I  hadn't.  But  I  kept  on  trying. 
The  war  in  Europe  came.  The  world  was  crazy  for  ships. 
They  couldn't  build  'em  fast  enough  to  keep  ahead  of  the 
submarines.  On  the  Great  Lakes  there  was  a  big  steamer 
not  doing  much  work.  I  heard  of  her.  I  went  up  and  saw 
her.  The  job  was  to  get  her  to  the  ocean.  I  managed  it  on 
borrowed  money,  bought  her,  and  brought  her  up  the  Saint 
Lawrence  to  the  sea — and  down  to  New  York.  I  made  a 
fortune  on  that  deal.  Then  did  I  retire  and  smoke  my  pipe 
of  peace?  No.  I  looked  for  another  chance. 

"When  our  country  went  into  the  war  she  needed  ships 
of  her  own.  She  had  to  have  shipyards  first  to  build  'em  in. 
My  lifelong  ambition  was  to  make  ships  from  the  keel- 
plate  up.  I  looked  for  the  best  place  to  put  a  shipyard, 
picked  on  this  spot  because  other  people  hadn't  found  it. 
My  partners  and  I  got  the  land  cheap  because  it  was  swamp. 
We  worked  out  our  plans,  sitting  up  all  night  over  blue 
prints  and  studying  how  to  save  every  possible  penny  and 
every  possible  waste  motion. 

"And  now  look  at  the  swamp.  It's  one  of  the  prettiest 
yards  in  the  world.  The  Germans  sank  my  Clara.  Did  I 
stop  or  go  to  making  speeches  about  German  vampires? 
No.  I  went  on  building. 

"The  Germans  tried  to  get  my  next  boat.  I  fought  for 
her  as  I'll  fight  the  Germans,  the  I.  W.  W.,  the  Bolshe 
vists,  or  any  other  sneaking  coyotes  that  try  to  destroy  my 
property. 


334  THE    CUP    OF    FURY 

"I  lost  this  right  arm  trying  to  save  that  ship.  And 
now  that  I'm  crippled,  am  I  asking  for  a  pension  or  an  ad 
mission  to  an  old  folks'  home?  Am  I  passing  the  hat  to  you 
other  workers?  No.  I'm  as  good  as  ever  I  was.  I  made 
my  left  arm  learn  my  right  arm's  business.  If  I  lose  my  left 
arm  next  I'll  teach  my  feet  to  write.  And  if  I  lose  those, 
by  God!  I'll  write  with  my  teeth,  or  wigwag  my  ears. 

"The  trouble  with  you,  Iddings,  and  the  like  of  you  is 
you  brood  over  your  troubles,  instead  of  brooding  over  ways 
to  improve  yourself.  You  spend  time  and  money  on  quack 
doctors.  But  I  tell  you,  don't  fight  your  work  or  your  boss. 
Fight  nature,  fight  sleep,  fight  fatigue,  fight  the  sky,  fight 
despair,  and  if  you  want  money  hunt  up  a  place  where  it's 
to  be  found." 

If  Iddings  had  had  brains  enough  to  understand  all  this 
he  would  not  have  been  Iddings  working  by  the  day.  His 
stubborn  response  was: 

"Well,  I'll  say  the  laboring-man  is  being  bled  by  the 
capitalists  and  he'll  never  get  his  rights  till  he  grabs  'em." 

"And  I'll  say  be  sure  that  you're  grabbing  your  rights 
and  not  grabbing  your  own  throat. 

"I'm  for  all  the  liberty  in  the  world,  for  the  dignity  of 
labor,  the  voice  of  labor,  the  labor-union,  the  profit-sharing 
basis,  the  republic  of  labor.  I  think  the  workers  ought  to 
have  a  voice  in  running  the  work — all  the  share  they  can 
handle,  all  the  control  that  won't  hurt  the  business.  But 
the  business  has  got  to  come  first,  for  it's  business  that  makes 
comfort.  I'll  let  any  man  run  this  shop  who  can  run  it  as 
well  as  I  can  or  better. 

"What  I'm  against  is  letting  somebody  run  my  business 
who  can't  run  his  own.  Talk  won't  build  ships,  old  man. 
And  complaints  and  protests  won't  build  ships,  or  make  any 
important  money. 

"Poor  men  are  just  as  good  as  rich  men  and  ought  to  have 
just  the  same  rights,  votes,  privileges.  But  the  first  right  a 
poor  man  ought  to  preserve  is  the  right  to  become  a  rich  man. 
Riches  are  beautiful  things,  Iddings,  and  they're  worth 
working  for.  And  they've  got  to  be  worked  for. 

"A  laboring-man  is  a  man  that  labors,  whether  he  labors 
for  two  dollars  a  day  or  a  thousand;  and  a  loafer  is  a  loafer, 
whether  he  has  millions  or  dimes.  Well,  I've  talked  longer 


THE    CUP   OF    FURY  335 

than  I  ever  did  before  or  ever  will  again.  Do  you  believe 
anything  I  say?" 

"No." 

Davidge  had  to  laugh.  "Well,  Iddings,  I've  got  to  hand 
it  to  you  for  obstinacy;  you've  got  an  old  mule  skinned  to 
death.  But  old  mules  can't  compete  with  race-horses. 
Balking  and  kicking  won't  get  you  very  far." 

He  walked  away,  and  Mamise  went  along.  Davidge  was 
in  a  somber  mood. 

"Poor  old  fellow,  he's  got  no  self-starter,  no  genius,  no 
ideas,  and  he's  doomed  to  be  a  drudge.  It's  the  rotten  cruelty 
of  the  world  that  most  people  are  born  without  enough  get- 
up-and-get  to  bring  them  and  their  work  together  without  a 
whistle  and  a  time-clock  and  an  overseer.  What  scheme  could 
ever  be  invented  to  keep  poor  old  Iddings  up  to  the  level  of 
a  Sutton  or  a  Sutton  down  to  his?" 

Mamise  had  heard  a  vast  amount  of  discontented  talk  among 
the  men. 

"There's  an  awful  lot  of  trouble  brewing." 

"Trouble  is  no  luxury  to  me,"  said  Davidge.  "Blessed 
is  he  that  expects  trouble,  for  he  shall  get  it.  Wait  till  this 
war  is  over  and  then  you'll  see  a  real  war." 

"Shall  we  all  get  killed  or  starved?" 

"Probably.  But  in  the  mean  while  we  had  better  sail  on 
and  on  and  on.  The  storm  will  find  us  wherever  we  are, 
and  there's  more  danger  close  ashore  than  out  at  sea.  Let's 
make  a  tour  of  the  Mamise  and  see  how  soon  she'll  be  ready 
to  go  overboard." 

22 


CHAPTER  VIII 

NICKY  E ASTON 'S  attempt  to  assassinate  the  ship  had 
failed,  but  the  wounds  he  dealt  her  had  retarded  her  so 
that  she  missed  by  many  weeks  the  chance  of  being  launched 
on  the  Fourth  of  July  with  the  other  ships  that  made  the 
Big  Splash  on  that  holy  day.  The  first  boat  took  her  dive 
at  one  minute  after  midnight  and  eighty-one  ships  followed 
her  into  the  astonished  sea. 

While  the  damaged  parts  of  the  Mamise  were  remade, 
Davidge  pushed  the  work  on  other  portions  of  the  ship's 
anatomy,  so  that  when  at  length  she  was  ready  for  the  dip 
she  was  farther  advanced  than  steel  ships  usually  are  before 
they  are  first  let  into  the  sea. 

Her  upper  works  were  well  along,  her  funnel  was  in,  and 
her  mast  and  bridge.  She  looked  from  a  distance  like  a  ship 
that  had  run  ashore. 

There  was  keen  rivalry  among  the  building-crews  of  the 
ships  that  grew  alongside  the  Mamise,  and  each  gang  strove 
to  put  its  boat  overboard  in  record  time.  The  "Mamisers," 
as  they  called  themselves,  fought  against  time  and  trouble 
to  redeem  her  from  the  "jinx"  that  had  set  her  back  again 
and  again.  During  the  last  few  days  the  heat  was  furious 
and  the  hot  plates  made  an  inferno  of  the  work.  Then  an 
icy  rain  set  in.  The  workers  would  not  stop  for  mean  weather, 
hot  or  cold. 

Mamise,  the  rivet-passer,  stood  to  her  task  in  a  continual 
shower-bath.  The  furnace  was  sheltered,  but  the  hot  rivets 
must  be  passed  across  the  rain  curtain.  Sutton  urged  her  to 
lay  off  and  give  way  to  Snotty  or  somebody  whose  health 
didn't  matter  a  damn.  Davidge  ordered  her  home,  but  her 
pride  in  her  sex  and  her  zest  for  her  ship  kept  her  at  work. 

And  then  suddenly  she  sneezed! 

She  sneezed  again  and  again  helplessly,  and  she  was  stricken 
with  a  great  fear.  For  in  that  day  a  sneeze  was  not  merely 


THE    CUP   OF    FURY  337 

the  little  explosion  of  tickled  surfaces  or  a  forewarning  of  a 
slight  cold.  It  was  the  alarum  of  the  new  Great  Death,  the 
ravening  lion  under  the  sheep's  wool  of  influenza. 

The  world  that  had  seen  the  ancient  horror  of  famine  come 
stalking  back  from  the  Dark  Ages  trembled  now  before  the 
plague.  The  influenza  swept  the  world  with  recurrent 
violences. 

Men  who  had  feared  to  go  to  the  trenches  were  snatched 
from  their  offices  and  from  their  homes.  Men  who  had  tried 
in  vain  to  get  into  the  fight  died  in  their  beds.  Women 
and  children  perished  innumerably.  Hearse-horses  were  over 
worked.  The  mysterious,  invisible  all-enemy  did  not  spare 
the  soldiers;  it  sought  them  in  the  dugouts,  among  the 
reserves,  at  the  ports  of  embarkation  and  debarkation,  at  the 
training-camps.  In  the  hospitals  it  slew  the  convalescent 
wounded  and  killed  the  nurses. 

From  America  the  influenza  took  more  lives  than  the  war 
itself. 

It  baffled  science  and  carried  off  the  doctors.  Masks  ap 
peared  and  people  in  offices  were  dressed  in  gauze  muzzles. 
In  some  of  the  cities  the  entire  populace  went  with  bandaged 
mouths,  and  a  man  who  would  steal  a  furtive  puff  of  a  ciga 
rette  stole  up  a  quiet  street  and  kept  his  eyes  alert  for  the 
police. 

Whole  families  were  stricken  down  and  brave  women  who 
dared  the  pestilence  found  homes  where  father,  mother,  and 
children  lay  writhing  and  starving  in  pain  and  delirium. 

At  the  shipyard  every  precaution  was  taken,  and  Davidge 
fought  the  unseen  hosts  for  his  men  and  for  their  families. 
Mamise  had  worn  herself  down  gadding  the  workmen's  row 
with  medicines  and  victuals  in  her  basket.  And  yet  the 
death-roll  mounted  and  strength  was  no  protection. 

In  Washington  and  other  cities  the  most  desperate  experi 
ments  in  sanitation  were  attempted.  Offices  were  closed  or 
dismissed  early.  Stenographers  took  dictation  in  masks.  It 
was  forbidden  to  crowd  the  street-cars.  All  places  of  public 
assembly  were  closed,  churches  no  less  than  theaters  and 
moving-picture  shows.  It  was  as  illegal  to  hold  prayer- 
meetings  as  dances. 

This  was  the  supreme  blow  at  religion.  The  preachers 
who  had  confessed  that  the  Church  had  failed  to  meet  the 


338  THE    CUP   OF    FURY 

war  problems  were  dazed.  Mankind  had  not  recovered  from 
the  fact  that  the  world  had  been  made  a  hell  by  the  German 
Emperor,  who  was  the  most  pious  of  rulers  and  claimed  to 
take  his  crown  from  God  direct.  The  German  Protestants 
and  priests  had  used  their  pulpits  for  the  propaganda  of  hate. 
The  Catholic  Emperor  of  Austria  had  aligned  his  priests. 
Catholic  and  Protestants  fought  for  the  Allies  in  the  trenches, 
unfrocked  or  in  their  pulpits.  The  Bishop  of  London  was 
booed  as  a  slacker.  The  Pope  wrung  his  hands  and  could 
not  decide  which  way  to  turn.  One  British  general  frivolously 
put  it,  "I  am  afraid  that  the  dear  old  Church  has  missed  the 
bus  this  trip." 

All  religions  were  split  apart  and,  as  Lincoln  said  of  the 
Civil  War,  both  sides  sent  up  their  prayers  to  the  same 
God,  demanding  that  He  crush  the  enemy. 

For  all  the  good  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.  accomplished,  it  ended 
the  war  with  the  contempt  of  most  of  the  soldiers.  Individual 
clergymen  won  love  and  crosses  of  war,  but  as  men,  not  as 
saints. 

The  abandoned  world  abandoned  all  its  gods,  and  men 
fought  men  in  the  name  of  mankind. 

Even  against  the  plague  the  churchfolk  were  refused  per 
mission  to  pray  together.  Christian  Scientists  published  full 
pages  of  advertising  protesting  against  the  horrid  situation, 
but  nobody  heeded. 

The  ship  of  state  lurched  along  through  the  mingled  storms, 
mastless,  rudderless,  pilotless,  priestless,  and  everybody 
wondered  which  would  live  the  longer,  the  ship  or  the  storm. 

And  then  Mamise  sneezed.  And  the  tiny  at-choo!  fright 
ened  her  to  the  soul  of  her  soul.  It  frightened  the  riveting- 
crew  as  well.  The  plague  had  come  among  them. 

"Drop  them  tongs  and  go  home!"  said  Sutton. 

"I've  got  to  help  finish  my  ship,"  Mamise  pleaded. 

"Go  home,  I  tell  you." 

"But  she's  to  be  launched  day  after  to-morrow  and  I've 
got  to  christen  her." 

"Go  home  or  I'll  carry  you,"  said  Sutton,  and  he  ad 
vanced  on  her.  She  dropped  her  tongs  and  ran  through 
the  gusty  rain,  across  the  yard,  out  of  the  gate,  and  down 
the  muddy  paths  as  if  a  wolf  pursued. 

She  flung  into  her  cottage,  lighted  the  fires,  heated  water, 


THE   CUP   OF   FURY"  339 

drank  a  quart  of  it,  took  quinine,  and  crept  into  her  bed. 
Her  tremors  shook  the  covers  off.  Sweat  rained  out  of  her 
pores  and  turned  to  ice-water  with  the  following  ague. 

The  doctor  came.  Sutton  had  gone  for  him  and  threatened 
to  beat  him  up  if  he  delayed.  The  doctor  had  nothing  to 
give  her  but  orders  to  stay  in  bed  and  wait.  Davidge  came, 
and  Abbie,  and  they  tried  to  pretend  that  they  were  not  in 
a  worse  panic  than  Mamise. 

There  were  no  nurses  to  be  spared  and  Abbie  was  installed. 
In  spite  of  her  malministrations  or  because  of  them,  Mamise 
grew  better.  She  stayed  in  bed  all  that  day  and  the  next, 
and  when  the  morning  of  the  launching  dawned  she  felt  so 
well  that  Abbie  could  not  prevent  her  from  getting  up  and 
putting  on  her  clothes. 

She  was  to  be  woman  again  to-day  and  to  wear  the  most 
fashionable  gown  in  her  wardrobe  and  the  least  masculine  hat. 

She  felt  a  trifle  giddy  as  she  dressed,  but  she  told  Abbie 
that  she  never  felt  better.  Her  only  alarm  was  the  dif 
ficulty  in  hooking  her  frock  at  the  waist.  Abbie  fought  them 
together  with  all  her  might  and  main. 

"If  being  a  workman  is  going  to  take  away  my  waist 
line,  here's  where  I  quit  work,"  said  Mamise.  "As  Mr. 
Dooley  says,  I'm  a  pathrite,  but  I'm  no  bigot." 

Davidge  had  told  her  to  keep  to  her  room.  He  had  tele 
phoned  to  Polly  Widdicombe  to  come  down  and  christen  the 
ship.  Polly  was  delayed  and  Davidge  was  frantic.  In  fact, 
the  Widdicombe  motor  ran  off  the  road  into  a  slough  of  despond 
and  Polly  did  not  arrive  until  after  the  ship  was  launched 
from  the  ways  and  the  foolhardy  Mamise  was  in  the 
hospital. 

*  •  When  Davidge  saw  Mamise  climbing  the  steps  to  the  launch- 
ing-platform  he  did  not  recognize  her  under  her  big  hat  till 
she  paused  for  breath  and  looked  up,  counting  the  remaining 
steep  steps  and  wondering  if  her  tottering  legs  would  nego 
tiate  the  height. 

He  ran  down  and  haled  her  up,  scolding  her  with  fury. 
He  had  been  on  the  go  all  night  and  he  was  raw  with  un 
easiness. 

"I'm  all  right,"  Mamise  pleaded.  "I  got  caught  in  the 
jam  at  the  gate  and  was  nearly  crushed.  That's  all.  It's 
glorious  up  here  and  I'd  rather  die  than  miss  it." 


340  THE    CUP   OF    FURY 

It  was  a  sight  to  see.  The  shipyard  was  massed  with  work 
men  and  their  families,  and  every  roof  was  crowded.  On 
a  higher  platform  in  the  rear  the  reporters  of  the  moving- 
picture  newspapers  were  waiting  with  their  cameras.  On 
the  roof  of  a  low  shed  a  military  band  was  tootling 
merrily. 

And  the  sky  had  relented  of  its  rain.  The  day  was  a 
masterpiece  of  good  weather.  A  brilliant  throng  mounted 
to  the  platform,  an  admiral,  sea-captains  and  lieutenants, 
officers  of  the  army,  a  Senator,  Congressmen,  judges,  capital 
ists,  the  jubilant  officers  of  the  ship-building  corporation. 
And  Mamise  was  the  queen  of  the  day.  She  was  the  ' '  sponsor ' ' 
for  the  ship  and  her  name  stood  out  on  both  sides  of  the 
prow,  high  overhead  where  the  launching-crew  grinned  down 
on  her  and  called  her  by  her  nom  de  guerre,  "Moll." 

The  moving-picture  men  yelled  at  her  and  asked  her  to 
pose.  She  went  to  the  rail  and  tried  to  smile,  feeling  as 
silly  as  a  Sunday-school  girl  repeating  a  golden  text,  and 
looking  it. 

Once  more  she  would  appear  in  the  Sunday  supplements, 
and  her  childish  confusion  would  make  throngs  in  moving- 
picture  theaters  laugh  with  pleasant  amusement.  Mamise 
was  news  to-day. 

The  air  was  full  of  the  hubbub  of  preparation.  Under 
neath  the  upreared  belly  of  the  ship  gnomes  crouched, 
pounding  the  wedges  in  to  lift  the  hull  so  that  other  gnomes 
could  knock  the  shoring  out. 

There  was  a  strange  fascination  in  the  racket  of  the  shores 
falling  over,  the  dull  clatter  of  a  vast  bowling-alley  after  a 
ten-strike. 

Painters  were  at  work  brushing  over  the  spots  where  the 
shores  had  rested. 

Down  in  the  tanks  inside  the  hull  were  a  few  luckless 
anonymities  with  search-lights,  put  there  to  watch  for  leaks 
from  loose  rivet-heads.  They  would  be  in  the  dark  and  see 
nothing  of  the  festival.  Always  there  has  to  be  some  one  in 
the  dark  at  such  a  time. 

The  men  who  would  saw  the  holding-blocks  stood  ready,  as 
solemn  as  clergymen.  The  cross-saws  were  at  hand  for  their 
sacred  office.  The  sawyers  and  the  other  workmen  were 
overdoing  their  unconcern.  Mamise  caught  sight  of  Sutton, 


THE    CUP   OF    FURY  34i 

lounging  in  violent  indifference,  but  giving  himself  away  by 
the  frenzy  of  his  jaws  worrying  his  quid  and  spurting  tobacco 
juice  in  all  directions. 

There  was  reason,  too,  for  uneasiness.  Sometimes  a  ship 
would  not  start  when  the  blocks  were  sawed  through.  There 
would  be  a  long  delay  while  hydraulic  jacks  were  sought  and 
put  to  work  to  force  her  forward.  Such  a  delay  had  a  super 
stitious  meaning.  Nobody  liked  a  ship  that  was  afraid  of  her 
element.  They  wanted  an  eagerness  in  her  get-away.  Or 
suppose  she  shot  out  too  impetuously  and  listed  on  the 
ways,  ripping  the  scaffolding  to  pieces  like  a  whale  thrashing 
a  raft  apart.  Suppose  she  careened  and  stuck  or  rolled  over 
in  :he  mud.  Such  things  had  happened  and  might  happen 
again.  The  Mamise  had  suffered  so  many  mishaps  that  the 
other  ship  crews  called  her  a  hoodoo. 

At  last  the  hour  drew  close.  Davidge  was  a  fanatic  on 
schedules.  He  did  not  want  his  ship  to  be  late  to  her  en 
gagement. 

'She's  named  after  me,  poor  thing,"  said  Mamise.    "She's 
bound  to  be  late." 

"She'll  be  on  time  for  once,"  Davidge  growled. 

In  the  older  days  with  the  old-fashioned  ships  the  boats 
had  gone  to  the  sea  like  brides  with  trousseaux  complete. 
The  launching-guests  had  made  the  journey  with  her;  a 
dinner  had  been  served  aboard,  and  when  the  festivities  were 
ended  the  waiting  tugs  had  taken  the  new  ship  to  the  old 
sea  for  the  honeymoon. 

But  nowadays  only  hulls  were  launched,  as  a  rule.  The 
mere  husk  was  then  brought  to  the  equipping-dock  to  receive 
her  engines  and  all  her  equipment. 

The  Mamise  was  farther  advanced,  but  she  would  have 
to  tie  up  for  sixty  days  at  least.  The  carpenters  had  her 
furniture  all  ready  and  waiting,  but  she  could  not  put  forth 
under  her  own  steam  for  two  months  more. 

The  more  reason  for  impatience  at  any  further  delay. 
Davidge  went  along  the  launching-platform  rails,  like  a 
captain  on  the  bridge,  eager  to  move  out  of  the  slip. 

"Make  ready!"  he  commanded.  "Stand  by!  Where's 
the  bottle?  Good  Lord!  Where's  the  bottle?"" 

That  precious  quart  of  champagne  was  missing  now.  The 
bottle  had  been  prepared  by  an  eminent  jeweler  with  silver 


342  THE   CUP   OF    FURY 

decoration  and  a  silken  net.  The  neck  would  be  a  cherished 
souvenir  thereafter,  made  into  a  vase  to  hold  flowers. 

The  bottle  was  found,  a  cable  was  lowered  from  aloft  and 
the  bottle  fastened  to  it. 

Davidge  explained  to  Mamise  for  the  tenth  time  just  what 
she  was  to  do.  He  gave  the  signal  to  the  sawyers.  The 
snarl  of  the  teeth  in  the  holding-blocks  was  lost  in  the  noise 
of  the  band.  The  great  whistle  on  the  fabricating-plant 
split  the  air.  The  moving  -  picture  camera-men  cranked 
their  machines.  The  last  inches  of  the  timbers  that  held 
the  ship  ashore  were  gnawed  through.  The  sawyers  said 
they  could  feel  the  ship  straining.  She  wanted  to  get  to  her 
sea.  They  loved  her  for  it. 

Suddenly  she  was  "sawed  off."  She  was  moving.  The 
rigid  mountain  was  an  avalanche  of  steel  departing  down  a 
wooden  hill. 

Mamise  stared,  gasped,  paralyzed  with  launch-fright. 
Davidge  nudged  her.  She  hurled  the  bottle  at  the  vanishing 
keel.  It  broke  with  a  loud  report.  The  wine  splashed 
everywhichway.  Some  of  it  spattered  Mamise's  new  gown. 

Her  muscles  went  to  work  in  womanly  fashion  to  brush 
off  the  stain. 

When  she  looked  up,  ashamed  of  her  homely  misbehavior, 
she  cried: 

"O  Lord!  I  forgot  to  say,  'I  christen  thee  Mamise'" 

"Say  it  now,"  said  Davidge. 

She  shouted  the  words  down  the  channel  opening  like  an 
abyss  as  the  vast  hulk  diminished  toward  the  river.  Far 
below  she  could  see  the  water  leap  back  from  the  shock  of  the 
new-comer.  Great,  circling  ripples  retreated  outward.  Waves 
fought  and  threw  up  bouquets  of  spume. 

The  chute  smoked  with  the  heat  of  the  ship's  passage 
and  a  white  cloud  of  steam  flew  up  and  followed  her  into  the 
river. 

She  was  launched,  beautifully,  perfectly.  She  sailed  level. 
She  was  water-borne. 

People  were  cheering,  the  band  was  pounding  all  out  of 
time,  every  eye  following  the  ship,  the  leader  forgetting  to  lead. 

Mamise  wept  and  Davidge's  eyes  were  wet.  Something 
surged  in  him  like  the  throe  of  the  river  where  the  ship  went 
in.  It  was  good  to  have  built  a  good  ship. 


THE   CUP   OF   FURY  343 

Mamise  wrung  his  hand.  She  would  have  kissed  him, 
but  she  remembered  in  time.  The  camera  caught  the  im 
pulse.  People  laughed  at  that  in  the  movie  theaters.  People 
cheered  in  distant  cities  as  they  assisted  weeks  after  in  the 
debut  of  Mamise. 

The  movies  took  the  people  everywhere  on  magic  carpets. 
Yet  there  were  curious  people  who  bewailed  them  as  inartistic ! 

Mamise's  little  body  and  her  little  soul  were  almost  blasted 
by  the  enormity  of  her  emotions.  The  ship  was  like  a  child 
too  big  for  its  mother,  and  the  ending  of  the  long  travail  left 
her  wrecked. 

She  tried  to  enter  into  the  hilarity  of  the  guests,  but  she 
was  filled  with  awe  and  prostrate  as  if  a  god  had  passed  by. 

The  crowd  began  to  trickle  down  the  long  steps  to  the 
feast  in  the  mess  hall.  She  dreaded  the  descent,  the  long 
walk,  the  sitting  at  table.  She  wanted  to  go  home  and  cry 
very  hard  and  be  good  and  sick  for  a  long  while. 

But  she  could  not  desert  Davidge  at  such  a  time  or  mar  his 
triumph  by  her  hypochondria.  She  wavered  as  she  climbed 
down.  She  rode  with  Davidge  to  the  mess-hall  in  his  car 
and  forced  herself  to  voice  congratulations  too  solemn  and 
too  fervid  for  words. 

The  guests  of  honor  sat  at  a  table  disguised  with  scenery 
as  a  ship's  deck.  A  thousand  people  sat  at  the  other  tables 
and  took  part  in  the  banquet. 

Mamise  could  not  eat  the  food  of  human  caterers.  She 
had  fed  on  honey-dew  and  drunk  the  milk  of  paradise. 

She  lived  through  the  long  procession  of  dishes  and  heard 
some  of  the  oratory,  the  glowing  praises  of  Davidge  and 
Uncle  Sam,  Mr.  Schwab,  Mr.  Hurley,  President  Wilson, 
the  Allies,  and  everybody  else.  She  heard  it  proclaimed  that 
America  was  going  back  to  the  sea,  so  long  neglected.  The 
prodigal  was  returning  home. 

Mamise  could  think  of  nothing  but  a  wish  to  be  in  bed. 
The  room  began  to  blur.  People's  faces  went  out  of  focus. 
Her  teeth  began  to  chatter.  Her  jaw  worked  ridiculously 
like  a  riveting-gun.  She  was  furious  at  it. 

She  heard  Davidge  whispering:  "What's  the  matter, 
honey?  You're  ill  again." 

"I — I  fancy — I — I  guess  I — I — am,"  she  faltered. 

"0  God!"  he  groaned,  "why  did  you  come  out?" 


344  THE    CUP    OF    FURY 

He  rose,  lifted  her  elbow,  murmured  something  to  the 
guests.  He  would  have  supported  her  to  the  door,  but  she 
pleaded : 

"Don't!  They'll  think  it's  too  much  ch-ch-champagne. 
I'm  all  right!" 

She  made  the  door  in  excellent  control,  but  it  cost  her  her 
last  cent  of  strength.  Outside,  she  would  have  fallen,  but 
he  huddled  her  in  his  arms,  lifted  her,  carried  her  to  his  car. 
He  piled  robes  on  her,  but  those  riveters  inside  her  threatened 
to  pound  her  to  death.  Burning  pains  gnawed  her  chest  like 
cross-cut  saws. 

When  the  car  stopped  she  was  not  in  front  of  her  cottage, 
but  before  the  hospital. 

When  the  doctor  finished  his  inspection  she  heard  him 
mumble  to  Davidge: 

' '  Pneumonia !     Double  pneumonia ! ' ' 


CHAPTER  IX 

ONCE  more  Mamise  had  come  between  Davidge  and  his 
work.  He  did  not  care  what  happened  to  his  ships  or 
his  shipyard.  He  watched  Mamise  fighting  for  life,  if  indeed 
she  fought,  for  he  could  not  get  to  her  through  the  fog. 

She  was  often  delirious  and  imagined  herself  back  in  her 
cruel  times.  He  learned  a  few  things  about  that  mystic  period 
she  would  never  disclose.  And  he  was  glad  that  she  had 
never  told  him  more.  He  fled  from  her,  for  eavesdropping 
on  a  delirium  has  something  of  the  contemptible  quality  of 
peeping  at  a  nakedness. 

He  supposed  that  Mamise  would  die.  All  the  poor  women 
with  pasts  that  he  had  read  about,  in  what  few  novels  he  had 
read,  had  died  or  it  had  been  found  out  that  they  had  magical 
ly  retained  their  innocence  through  years  of  evil  environment. 

He  supposed  also  that  Mamise  would  die,  because  that  was 
the  one  thing  needful  to  make  his  life  a  perfect  failure.  He 
had  not  gone  to  war,  yet  he  had  lost  his  arm.  He  had  never 
really  desperately  loved  before,  and  now  he  would  lose  his 
heart.  It  was  just  as  well,  because  if  Mamise  lived  he  would 
lose  her,  anyway.  He  would  not  tie  her  to  the  crippled 
thing  he  was. 

While  the  battalions  of  disease  ravaged  the  poor  Belgium 
of  Mamise's  body  the  world  outside  went  on  making  history. 
The  German  Empire  kept  caving  in  on  all  sides.  Her  armies 
held  nowhere.  Her  only  pride  was  in  saving  a  defeat  from 
being  a  disaster.  Her  confederates  were  disintegrating.  The 
newspapers  mentioned  now,  not  cities  that  surrendered  to  the 
Allies,  but  nations. 

And  at  last  Germany  added  one  more  to  her  unforgivable 
assaults  upon  the  patience  of  mankind.  Just  as  the  Allies 
poised  for  the  last  tremendous  all-satisfying  coup  de  grdce 
the  Empire  put  up  her  hands  and  whined  the  word  that  had 
become  the  world-wide  synonym  for  poltroonery,  "  Kamerad!" 


346  THE   CUP   OF    FURY 

Foch  wept,  American  soldiers  cursed  because  they  could 
not  prove  their  mettle  and  drive  the  boche  into  the  Rhine. 
Never  was  so  bitter  a  disappointment  mingled  with  a  triumph 
so  magnificent.  The  world  went  wild  with  the  news  of 
peace.  The  nations  all  made  carnival  over  the  premature 
rumor  and  would  not  be  denied  their  rhapsodies  because  the 
story  was  denied.  They  made  another  and  a  wilder  carnival 
when  the  news  was  confirmed. 

Davidge  took  the  peace  without  enthusiasm.  Mamise  had 
been  better,  but  was  worse  again.  She  got  still  better  than 
before  and  not  quite  so  worse  again.  And  so  in  a  climbing 
zigzag  she  mounted  to  health  at  last. 

She  had  missed  the  carnival  and  she  woke  on  the  morning 
after.  Nearly  everybody  was  surprised  to  find  that  ending 
this  one  war  had  brought  a  dozen  new  wars,  a  hundred,  a 
myriad. 

The  danger  that  had  united  the  nations  into  a  holy  crusade 
had  ended,  and  the  crusaders  were  men  again.  They  were 
back  in  the  same  old  world  with  the  same  old  sins  and  sorrows 
and  selfishnesses,  and  unnumbered  new  ones.  And  they 
had  the  habit  of  battle — the  gentlest  were  accustomed  to 
slaughter. 

It  was  not  the  Central  Powers  alone  that  had  disintegrated. 
The  Entente  Cordiale  was  turned  into  a  caldron  of  toil  and 
trouble.  No  two  people  in  any  one  nation  agreed  on  the 
best  way  to  keep  the  peace.  Nobody  could  accept  any 
other  body's  theories. 

Russia,  whose  collapse  had  cost  the  Allies  a  glimpse  of 
destruction  and  a  million  lives,  was  a  new  plague  spot,  the 
center  of  the  world's  dread.  While  the  people  in  Russia 
starved  or  slew  one  another  their  terrible  missionaries  went 
about  the  world  preaching  chaos  as  the  new  gospel  and 
fanning  the  always  smoldering  discontent  of  labor  into  a 
prairie  fire. 

Ships  were  needed  still.  Europe  must  be  fed.  Hunger  was 
the  Bolshevists'  blood-brother.  Unemployment  was  the  third 
in  the  grim  fraternity. 

Davidge  increased  his  force  daily,  adding  a  hundred  men  or 
more  to  his  army,  choosing  mainly  from  the  returning  hordes 
of  soldiers. 

When  Mamise  at  last  had  left  the  hospital  she  found  a  new 


THE    CUP   OF    FURY  347 

ship  growing  where  the  Mamise  had  dwelt.  The  Mamise 
was  at  the  equipping-dock,  all  but  ready  for  the  sea,  about 
to  steam  out  and  take  on  a  cargo  of  food  to  Poland,  the  new- 
old  country  gathering  her  three  selves  together  under  the 
spell  of  Paderewski's  patriotic  fire. 

Mamise  wanted  to  go  to  work  again.  Her  strength  was 
back  and  she  was  not  content  to  return  to  crochet-hooks  and 
tennis-racquets.  She  had  tasted  the  joy  of  machinery,  had 
seen  it  add  to  her  light  muscles  a  giant's  strength.  She  wanted 
to  build  a  ship  all  by  herself,  especially  the  riveting. 

Davidge  opposed  her  with  all  his  might.  He  pointed  out 
that  the  dream  of  women  laboring  with  men,  each  at  her  job, 
had  been  postponed,  like  so  many  other  dreams,  lost  like  so 
many  other  benefits  that  mitigated  war. 

The  horrors  of  peace  were  upon  the  world.  Men  were 
driving  the  women  back  to  the  kitchen.  There  were  not 
jobs  enough  for  all. 

But  Mamise  pleaded  to  be  allowed  to  work  at  least  till  her 
own  ship  was  finished.  So  Davidge  yielded  to  quiet  her. 
She  put  back  into  her  overalls  and  wielded  a  monkey-wrench 
in  the  engine-room.  She  took  flying  trips  on  the  lofty  cranes. 

One  afternoon  when  the  whistle  blew  she  remained  aloft 
alone  to  revel  in  the  wonder  view  of  the  world,  the  wide  and 
gleaming  river,  the  peaceful  hills,  the  so-called  handiwork  of 
God,  and  everywhere  the  pitiful  beauty  of  man's  efforts  to 
work  out  his  destiny  and  enslave  the  forces. 

Human  power  was  not  the  least  of  these  forces.  Ingenious 
men  had  learned  how  to  use  not  only  wind  currents,  water 
falls,  and  lightning  and'  the  heat  stored  up  in  coal,  but  to  use 
also'  the  power  stored~up  in  the  muscles  of  their  more  slow- 
brained  fellows.  And  these  forces  broke  loose  at  times  with 
the  ruinous  effect  of  tornadoes,  floods,  and  thunderbolts. 

The  laborers  needed  merciful  and  intelligent  handling,  and 
the  better  they  were  the  better  their  work.  It  was  hard  to 
say  what  was  heresy  and  what  was  wisdom,  what  was  op 
pression  and  what  was  helpful  discipline.  Whichever  way 
one  turned,  there  was  misunderstanding,  protest,  revolt. 

Mamise  thought  that  everybody  ought  to  be  happy  and  love 
everybody  else.  She  thought  that  it  ought  to  be  joy  enough 
to  go  on  working  in  that  splendid  shop  and  about  the  flock  of 
ships  on  the  ways. 


348  THE    CUP   OF    FURY 

And  yet  people  would  insist  on  being  miserable.  She,  the 
priestess  of  unalloyed  rapture,  also  sighed. 

Hearing  a  step  on  the  crane,  she  was  startled.  After  all, 
she  was  only  a  woman,  alone  up  here,  and  help  could  never 
reach  her  if  any  one  threatened  her.  She  looked  over  the  edge. 

There  came  the  man  who  most  of  all  threatened  her — 
Davidge.  He  endangered  her  future  most  of  all,  whether  he 
married  her  or  deserted  her.  He  evidently  had  no  intention 
of  marrying  her,  for  she  had  given  him  chances  enough  and 
hints  enough. 

He  had  a  telegram  in  his  hand  and  apologized  for  following 
her. 

"I  didn't  know  but  it  might  be  bad  news." 

"There's  nobody  to  send  me  bad  news  except  you  and 
Abbie."  She  opened  the  telegram.  It  was  an  invitation  from 
Polly  to  come  back  to  sanity  and  a  big  dance  at  the  Hotel 
Washington.  She  smiled.  "I  wonder  if  I'll  ever  dance 
again." 

Davidge  was  tired  from  the  climb.  He  dropped  to  the  seat 
occupied  by  the  chauffeur  of  the  crane.  He  rose  at  once  with 
an  apology  and  offered  his  place  to  Mamise. 

She  shook  her  head,  then  gave  a  start : 

"Great  Heavens!  that  reminds  me!  That  seat  of  yours  I 
took  on  the  train  from  New  York.  I've  never  paid  for  it." 

"Oh,  for  the  Lord's  sake— 

"  I'm  going  to  pay  it.  That's  where  all  the  trouble  started. 
How  much  was  it?" 

"I  don't  remember." 

"About  two  dollars  now." 

"Exactly  one  then." 

She  drove  her  hand  down  into  the  pocket  of  her  breeches 
and  dragged  up  a  fistful  of  small  money. 

"To-day  was  pay-day.     Here's  your  dollar." 

"Want  a  receipt?" 

"Sure,  Mike.     I  couldn't  trust  you." 

An  odd  look  crossed  his  face.  He  did  not  play  easily,  but 
he  tried: 

"I  can't  give  you  a  receipt  now,  because  everybody  is 
looking." 

"Do  you  mean  that  you  had  an  idea  -of  kissing  me?"  she 
gasped. 


THE   CUP   OF   FURY  349 

"Yep." 

"You  reckless  devil!  Do  you  think  that  a  plutocrat  can 
kiss  every  poor  goil  in  the  shop?" 

"You're  the  only  one  here." 

"Well,  then,  do  you  think  you'll  take  advantage  of  my 
womanly  helplessness  ? ' ' 

"Yes." 

"Never!  Overalls  is  royal  raiment  when  wore  for  voitue's 
sake.  You'll  never  kiss  me  till  you  put  a  wedding-ring  on 
me  finger." 

He  looked  away,  sobered  and  troubled. 

She  stared  at  him.  "Good  Heavens!  Can't  you  take  a 
hint?" 

"Not  that  one." 

"Then  I  insist  on  your  marrying  me.  You  have  com 
promised  me  hopelessly.  Everybody  says  I  am  working  here 
just  to  be  near  you,  and  that's  a  fact." 

He  was  a  caricature  of  mental  and  physical  awkwardness. 

She  gasped:  "And  still  he  doesn't  answer  me!  Must  I 
get  on  my  knees  to  you?" 

She  dropped  on  her  knees,  a  blue  denim  angel  on  a  cloud, 
praying  higher. 

He  stormed:  "For  Heaven's  sake,  get  up!  Somebody  will 
see  you." 

She  did  not  budge.  "I'll  not  rise  from  my  knees  till  you 
promise  to  marry  me." 

He  started  to  escape,  moved  toward  the  steps.  She  seized 
his  knees  and  moaned : 

"Oh,  pity  me!   pity  me!" 

He  was  excruciated  with  her  burlesque,  tried  to  drag  her  to 
her  feet,  but  he  had  only  one  hand  and  he  could  not  manage 
her. 

"  Please  get  up.     I  can't  make  you.     I've  only  one  arm." 

"Let's  see  if  it  fits."  She  rose  and,  holding  his  helpless 
hand,  whirled  round  into  his  arm.  "  Perfect !"  Then  she  stood 
there  and  called  from  her  eyrie  to  the  sea-gulls  that  haunted 
the  river,  "In  the  presence  of  witnesses  this  man  has  taken 
me  for  his  affianced  fiancee." 

They  had  a  wedding  in  the  village  church.  Abbie  was 
matron  of  honor  and  gave  her  sister  away.  Her  children 


350  THE    CUP   OF    FURY 

were  very  dressed  up  and  highly  uncomfortable.  Abbie  drew 
Mamise  aside  after  the  signing  of  the  book. 

"Oh,  thank  Gawd  you're  marrit  at  last,  Mamise!  You've 
been  such  a  worrit  to  me.  I  hope  you'll  be  as  happy  as  poor 
Jake  and  me  was.  If  he  only  hadn't  'a'  had  to  gave  his  life 
for  you,  you  wouldn't  'a'  been.  But  he's  watchin'  you  from 
up  there  and —  Oh  dear!  Oh  dear!" 

Jake  was  already  a  tradition  of  increasing  beauty.  So 
may  we  all  of  us  be ! 

Mamise  insisted  on  dragging  Davidge  away  from  the  ship 
yard  for  a  brief  honeymoon. 

"You're  such  a  great  executive,  they'll  never  miss  you. 
But  I  shall.  I  decline  to  take  my  honeymoon  or  live  my 
married  life  alone." 

They  went  up  to  Washington  for  a  while  of  shopping. 
The  city  was  already  reverting  to  type.  The  heart  had  gone 
out  of  the  stay-at-home  war-workers  and  the  tide  was  on 
the  ebb  save  for  a  new  population  of  returned  soldiers,  in 
numerably  marked  with  the  proofs  of  sacrifice,  not  only  by 
their  service  chevrons,  their  wound  stripes,  but  also  by  the 
parts  of  their  brave  bodies  that  they  had  left  in  France. 

They  were  shy  and  afraid  of  themselves  and  of  the  world, 
and  especially  of  their  women.  But,  as  Adelaide  wrote  of 
the  new  task  of  rehabilitation,  "a  merciful  Providence  sees  to 
it  that  we  become,  in  time,  used  to  anything.  If  we  had  all 
been  born  with  one  arm  or  one  leg  our  lives  and  loves  would 
have  gone  on  just  the  same." 

To  many  another  woman,  as  to  Mamise,  was  given  the 
privilege  of  adding  herself  to  her  wounded  lover  to  complete 
him. 

Polly  Widdicombe,  seeing  Mamise  and  Davidge  dancing 
together,  smiled  through  her  tears,  almost  envying  her  her 
husband.  Davidge  danced  as  well  with  one  arm  as  with 
two,  but  Mamise,  as  she  clasped  that  blunt  shoulder  and 
that  pocketed  sleeve,  was  given  the  final  touch  of  rapture 
made  perfect  with  regret:  she  had  the  aching  pride  of  a 
soldier's  sweetheart,  for  she  could  say: 

"  I  am  his  right  arm." 

THE   END 


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